


Twins

by Eurydia



Series: Heartlines [1]
Category: Death Stranding (Video Games)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Temporary Character Death, Depression, F/M, Loneliness, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Postpartum Depression, Slow Burn, Spoilers, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-25
Packaged: 2021-02-25 04:42:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 20
Words: 22,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22490263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eurydia/pseuds/Eurydia
Summary: They lost themselves in the stars. All the while, the sisters held onto the tether like it was their lifeline.But they knew that even without a tether, they would always find their way back to each other.
Relationships: Heartman/Mama, Lockne & Mama (Death Stranding), Lockne/Aaron Hill
Series: Heartlines [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1618138
Kudos: 11





	1. Målingen and Lockne

I was like you once, a sealed plastic bag of water filters floating on the sea.

I thought my numbers proved my time and space on earth.

I thought having children was a way of creating more love.

__

\- Brenda Shaughnessy, The Octopus Museum

_For my brother, who still hasn't played this game despite me repeatedly telling him to._

### 

The young sisters went into the artificially starlit room, hand-in-hand, where holos of moons and stars slowly danced across the room. The floor was covered in plastic craters of varying sizes, and in the center was the planetary room’s namesake: Elorza. The Elorza room was one of the largest rooms in NASA II, and not yet open to the public. One corner was closed off by bright yellow construction tape; warning signs hung here and there. The closed off spaces gave it a sense of unfinished secrecy, and whenever the sisters snuck in it felt like they were on the verge of uncovering some government conspiracy. 

Most of the time, it was just the janitor dancing with his mop. They had caught him kissing its head more than once, and each time they would snicker too loudly from their hiding spot inside one of the large craters, making the old man drop his dance partner and run away, screaming.

“Wonder where Vance is,” Målingen asked, looking around to check if the room was empty. “Or his girlfriend.” 

It was Lockne who popped her head out from a crater and said, “The floor is really shiny.” She walked over to another crater, taking comically big, careful steps. Her own space walk. “He just mopped.”

“Oh! Right,” Målingen beamed. Then her smile fell. “Poor Tracy.”  


“Who’s Tracy?”  


“That’s what I heard him call his mop once.”  


“Lockne scrunched her chubby face. “ _Eww._ ”

Something shiny glinted on the floor. It reflected the holo light at intervals, reminding Lockne of flickering stars. “Målingen, look!” she picked up a flat rope with a metal hook on either end. “It’s a safety tether. Astronauts use it in space so they won’t float away.” 

It felt more like a flimsy backpack strap than an actual tether, with its fraying edges and rusted hooks. Målingen held it in her tiny hands, found one of the hooks and turned it over in her palm. The brass felt cold and heavy. Then, looking over to her twin sister, she hooked the tether onto her bracelet. Lockne did the same with hers. 

They were each other’s reflection given form and consciousness, inseparable even in the womb—conjoined twins that were never meant to be apart. 

Lockne wore her hair down, while Målingen put hers up in a loose ponytail so their parents could tell them apart without having to look into their eyes. Målingen had blue galaxies for hers, bright and brilliant, while doe-eyed Lockne had earthen browns, soft and warm. But if it was up to them, they would dress, act, and look exactly the same way. 

“We’re connected now...” Lockne said, smiling at her sister before looking up at the stars.

“We won’t drift apart,” Målingen continued. They lost themselves in the stars. All the while, the sisters held onto the tether like it was their lifeline. 

But they knew that even without a tether, they would always find their way back to each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At the end of some chapters will be a song that sets the mood or foreshadows what's happening next, like in the game (but with no BT interruptions c; ). The warning tags apply to some of them; I will leave a note for the ones that do.  
> [Twins - Gem Club](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z68XfDV5fWQ)
> 
> [[Cover art for "Twins" on my art Tumblr]](https://eurydia.tumblr.com/post/190711496988/im-proud-to-announce-that-chapters-of-my)


	2. Mama

Mama cradled her BT baby in her arms. The baby’s crying echoed in the hospital wing; timefall thundered against the roof, merciless and unending. Neither of them liked the rain. The clattering was a constant reminder of the day they almost died. 

If it wasn’t for her baby, she wouldn’t be alive. 

“Shh, shh. It’s okay, Ellie,” Mama rocked her arms back and forth. Baby Ellie’s crying became soft cooing. She was falling asleep. 

“Mama is scared too,” she murmured.

Once Ellie was sound asleep, she let her float off to her favorite spot in the ceiling, beside the mobile she built for her. Its metal whales spun slowly and caught afternoon light from a nearby window. Mama sat at her lab bench, laying her odradek down and inspecting it. The scanner wasn’t perfect, but for something she repurposed using spare metal parts, it did the job. It helped her sense Ellie. The odradek, along with her DOOMS, made Mama feel closer to her. She could only see a vague, hazy outline of the child and their umbilical cord, but it was more than enough. 

She was tightening some screws on the odradek when a holocall came in through her cuff link. It was Deadman. 

“Mama, it’s Deadman. Got a moment?”

The physician always look concerned whenever he spoke to her. She wished he wouldn’t worry so much.

“You have perfect timing. She _just_ fell asleep,” his holo phased through her lab bench back and forth. He was pacing around, which meant he was about to share a finding.

“I ran more tests on the vials of Sam’s blood that you sent me," Deadman explained. “I think I may know why it’s so effective against BTs!” Mama checked on Ellie behind her. The baby sometimes tugged at their umbilical cord in her sleep.

“Oh, sorry,” he apologized, lowering his voice. “I got excited. You might wanna share this with Heartman, too. I tried reaching out to him, but no response. I know you two haven’t spoken in a while, but you stand a better chance at getting through to him than I do.”

Mama would leave her lab and visit Heartman in a heartbeat, if she could. But ever since he lost his family, he had pushed her and everyone away. Not a single call or email. She understood his grieving, having felt a similar pain through Lockne. But it didn’t diminish how hurt she was at being cut out of his life—especially after all they’ve been through in the Second Expedition. 

“So, what did you find?” Mama said, changing the subject.

Deadman sent over a picture of a slide at 600x. Her histology needed some brushing up, but Deadman was more than happy to give a rundown of what they were looking at.

“After running some more tests, I discovered that Sam’s peripheral blood is rich in HSCs, hematopoietic stem cells—cells that give rise to other types of blood cells. That’s how they made part of me, actually.” 

“That’s...normal, right?” Mama asked, rummaging through a nearby toolbox for a hex key.  


"Normally, the bone marrow has a much higher number of HSCs than peripheral blood.[1] But in Sam’s case, he has near equal amounts in both his bone marrow and peripheral blood,” Deadman zoomed in on the slide. He stared at it for a few moments, curiosity stirring in his round eyes. “That raises another question: what happens to BTs once Sam...gets rid of them? Heartman might have theories of his own, but I wonder if they ever truly disappear.”

His gaze wandered to the ceiling, then he tensed as if suddenly seized by a ghost. “I-I say all this to mean BTs in _general._ Not baby Ellie, of course.” He searched for her but, unable to see BTs, decided to smile at the mobile instead.

“...Thank you,” she smiled at him earnestly, then pointed her chin to where Ellie was sleeping. He adjusted his gaze. In all the years she had worked with him, Deadman had never hidden anything from her. He always kept his word, and she trusted him with her life.

“I think there’s an afterlife. For BTs too,” said Deadman, eventually. “I think you, Sam, Heartman—everyone else has one. I know I don’t...but I can rest easy, knowing my friends have somewhere to go when it’s their time.”

“Oh, don’t say that. Of course you have one,” Mama reassured him, even though she wasn’t entirely convinced there was an afterlife at all. “You’re a good person. You deserve one.”

He was about to counter her with some other reason, but she had heard most if not all of it: he had no soul—but could a soulless person care for others as deeply as he did? He didn’t have a Beach. No Beach meant no afterlife—but what did that make Heartman, who could visit other people's Beaches?

Deadman sighed then smiled at her. “I wish I could hug you right now.”

“Nothing is stopping you,” Mama laughed, walking towards him so he could ‘pull’ her into a hug. He always gave the best hugs, and she hated how she couldn’t feel them. 

Maybe Deadman was right about BT’s having their own afterlife. They were human once, after all—Ellie was once alive in her womb; her and Lockne could attest to that. But whose world did she belong to, the living or the dead? Which one would she go to once this was all over, and how would she get there? 

The more she thought about it, the more questions it raised.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 Hordyjewska, A., Popiołek, Ł., & Horecka, A. (2014). [Characteristics of hematopoietic stem cells of umbilical cord blood.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4371573/#Abs1title%22)


	3. Heartman

The last time Heartman died was three minutes ago. 

It meant he had eighteen minutes to prepare for his next death, which would be his 216,030th trip to the Beach. If the Beach was the Underworld, —which it was, at times—he would’ve driven Charon mad years ago. Or perhaps he was Charon all along, doomed to ferry his soul, and only his soul, to and from the Beach for all eternity. He had the luxury of dying and resurrecting sixty times per day; three minutes at a time, in the living world. But on the Beach, it felt like hours. 

It was, among other things, inconvenient.

Heartman sat up on his white divan, wiping away tears under his glasses. “No luck,” he muttered. He was back in his lab. The ground, rough white sand a few minutes prior, now soft padding, the infinite sea replaced by a frosted floor-to-ceiling window. Heartman called the cavernous place his ‘lab,’ when in actuality it was his home. It still bore a strong semblance of it: old family photos hung near mounted specimens and botanical illustrations. A framed crayon drawing by his daughter was prominently displayed on his bookshelf. On one couch was his wife’s pile of research folders, just as it was the day he lost her and their daughter. His whole world. 

Heartman had eighteen minutes until his next cardiac arrest. Eighteen minutes until he could resume his search for his family. Since his life was now condensed into twenty-one minute sessions, he grew accustomed to doing everything with machine-like precision. Conversations, tasks, medication—everything required to maintain his bodily functions were planned days, if not weeks in advance. 

He decided to spend his eighteen minutes typing up his observations from his last trip to the Beach:

> _Beach #216,030_
> 
> Still no sign of Miriam or Sarah. The sands were grey, and the seas tumultuous and empty. No beached whales present, nor any footprints besides my own. Yet another empty beach...
> 
> I am alone again.

Halfway into his typing, his cuff link rang. A holocall from Mama. It had been three years since she last contacted him. Her twin sister, Lockne, had been under the radar for the better part of a year, her contact with Bridges reduced to a minimum.

Heartman wouldn’t have blamed Mama if, in those years of radio silence, she had given up on him. He was the one who pushed her and everyone else away, after all. It was always his damned fault that the people around him were getting hurt. This was his life for the past three years: tolerable isolation. Keeping everyone at arm’s length. Being alone bought him more time to search for his family, less chances of getting close to anyone. 

“Heartman? It’s Mama. I know it’s been a while.” She began. He noticed a rasp of fatigue in her voice. She wore a Bridges jumpsuit, rolled down halfway with the rest gathered at her waist, hair always up like he remembered.

“Mama. How many years has it been? Two?” It was three, but he didn’t want her to know he had been keeping track.  
“Three, actually. You look...you look well.”  
“No need for pleasantries, I know I’ve gained a paunch.” Heartman wanted to pat his belly to make a point but decided to knock on his AED instead. He extended his hand out of habit, which phased right through her. “Oh, hologram. Of course.” 

Mama smiled and ‘shook’ his hand anyway. She was tinkering with what looked like a new odradek, her holo flickering as she sat at her lab bench. 

“How is your sister?” He asked. 

She seemed puzzled by the question. Then, as if remembering something, added, “Good. She’s good.” The static made her voice sound sharper than it really was. “Got something you might find interesting.”

“Oh?” Heartman raised a brow. It reminded him of their old expedition days, the way they would exchange findings as soon as they stumbled upon them. He missed this. 

“Sam’s blood.” She said.


	4. Mama

When Deadman referred her to Heartman, she was skeptical. The former was one of Bridges’ most trusted physicians; if there was anyone who could figure out why Sam’s bodily fluids were so effective against BTs, it was him. 

Heartman went by _Beach Scientist_ now. She had been keeping up with most of his papers, which he seemed to pump out constantly. His heart condition forced him to put his expedition days behind him, but he never stopped his research. That was the Heartman she knew: the man who hated sitting around and doing nothing. These days he lived by a heart-shaped lake over by Mountain Knot City, some three thousand miles west of her lab. Despite the distance, the network—or what’s left of it—held up surprisingly well. 

Mountain Knot was also where Lockne was. Mama didn’t know for certain. Ever since their connection was severed, she wasn’t sure of anything. She just felt it was the ideal place for her grieving sister to disappear to, cold and desolate and far away from it all. 

Mama tightened the remaining screws on her odradek as they made small talk. She told him about her current projects, a new cuff link and Q-pid for Sam. In turn, he shared some findings on his research on the Stranding. He had revisited an old theory of his, on why BTs were reaching out to them: to supposedly forge connections with the world of the living. A theory she could get behind.

She couldn’t help but sneak glances at the defibrillator still stuck to him, which he wore like a messenger bag. It looked heavy and snug, almost glued to his body. She always felt secondhand discomfort at the sight of it. A part of her had hoped his condition would improve over the years, but nothing seems to have changed. He still carried himself with the stiffness of a professor, dressed like one too, with his blue blazer and crisp white button-up. His sneakers were the only casual thing about him. 

“What have you and Deadman discovered so far?” He asked, typing up a storm. Another paper probably.

“We both arrived at the same conclusion: something about his DOOMS makes his...fluids highly effective against BTs. His blood especially. We ran some tests, and it’s consistent with someone who has DOOMS—high B lymphocyte count, longer than average RBC lifespan.” Mama continued, shifting on her metal stool to face Heartman fully. “Do you know about hematopoietic stem cells?” 

“Indeed. They're the precursors to other stem cells, found in the bone marrow of adults and in the umbilical cord blood of newborns.” Heartman stopped typing a few minutes back, pacing around his lab as he talked. 

“Yep. HSCs, I’m told, are usually only found in small numbers in peripheral blood. But take a look,” Mama flicked her cuff link and sent him an image. Heartman projected it onto the immense window-screen in front of him. Small orange circles filled the confines of the black image. They reminded Mama of partial lunar eclipses at different phases, some full, others waning. 

“Pretty cool, huh? It’s a slide of Sam’s peripheral blood,” she said, waiting for Heartman to get a good look. “Deadman said there’s an unusually high amount of HSCs in it.”

“Now I understand why he had you contact me.” Heartman said, at length. Even the occasional chiral static wasn’t enough to dampen the clarity of his voice.  
“One of the foci of my research is the potential link between umbilical cords and the Death Stranding,” he explained. “It’s no coincidence that HSCs are found in high concentrations in both umbilical cords and Sam’s blood.”

Heartman brought his gaze back to Mama. “Did you know that BTs have umbilical cords as well?”

Mama nodded. A silence fell between them. Afterwards, “What we’re considering now is...where do BTs go? After, you know. Sam chucks his blood at them.”

“Ah, yes. If there’s a BT afterlife perhaps, or— _five minutes remaining, please proceed to a safe location._ ” Mama didn’t recognize the voice of his new AED. She glanced around a bit, then Heartman added, “It’s me. Or my AED, rather.”

“Everything okay?” She asked, concern written all over her face. Heartman must’ve read it and gave her a dismissive wave. 

“I’ll be fine. I’m just going into cardiac arrest in five minutes.” He went back to his typing. “Not much has changed, I’m afraid. Every twenty-one minutes. Sixty deaths, sixty resurrections per day. Sixty opportunities to search for my departed family.”

 _Departed_ family. A few years back, when they were both still on the expedition team, Mama remembered the few times Heartman mentioned his family. She knew he had a wife and child—but not their names, or even his own name. He struck her as the type of man who wanted to keep his work and personal life separate, which she respected, but couldn’t relate to. Since she used to work with Lockne, her work and life were always intertwined. She couldn’t fathom separating the two. 

The years haven’t been kind to him, she thought. His eyes were baggier than before, and she swore that the creases on his sun spotted forehead were deeper, longer. Knowing that she had drifted away from him twisted her stomach into knots. With all that happened between her and Lockne, maintaining connections with people was the last thing on her mind. She couldn’t stand being cut out of other people’s lives, yet she found herself readily doing the same. 

“I’m sorry. It must be so difficult.” Mama said, partly to herself. She looked to Heartman, whose back was to her. His shoulders lowered at the words; the only sign of sadness he gave off. She always wondered how he managed to live the way he did, but never knew how to go about asking him. It wasn’t an easy subject to broach, yet he made it sound like it was, which worried her more than anything. 

“Yes. But most of life’s basic functions fit rather easily in a twenty one minute timeframe.” He said, indifferent. Mama searched his eyes for answers to the questions she couldn’t ask. _What happened to you? Why didn’t you reach out to us, or ask for help?_

“ _One minute remaining. Please hold onto something secure._ I’ll explain more once I return from the Beach.” Heartman said, laying on his bed and shifting until he found a comfortable position. She walked up to him tentatively, unsure if this was her cue to leave. Heartman laid still, moving only to reset the hourglass by his bedside. 

“Could you...stay until I get back?” He asked, eyes still closed. There was no inflection in his voice; he wasn’t trying to sway her opinion one way or another. 

“I’m not going anywhere.” She stated. 

Heartman gave her a thumbs-up and twenty likes, and she laughed at his familiar silliness. She might’ve even missed it. “Rest assured, it will only feel like three minutes to you,” he said. He opened his eyes to see if she was still there.

A small smile found its way to his lips once he saw her. It dropped the instant he flatlined.


	5. Heartman

Heartman woke up on the Beach. He felt lighter here, without his AED constantly weighing him down. His cuff link, which never left his wrist, was a familiar comfort. Though it never worked in the past, he still attempted to use it each time he woke up.

He flicked his wrist. Nothing. He supposed that its only purpose here was to light darkened Beaches, should he ever find himself in one. 

It was early morning on this particular Beach, all white sand and smooth pebbles, the ocean calm and soothing; a stark contrast from the violent storms of Beaches past. He saw a small child by the shoreline. Short hair nearly golden in the light, sneakers bright blue against the white sand. 

It was her. It was—

Sarah!” Heartman called her name. She didn’t turn around. He wasn’t going to lose her again. He ran towards her and pulled her into a tight hug, afraid that the waves would wash her away.  
“Oh, Sarah, my little girl. How I’ve missed you—!” He pulled back and saw the girl’s face. It wasn’t Sarah. She was someone else, someone he didn’t know. The girl rubbed sleep from her eyes and looked at him wearily as he backed away.  
Heartman knelt on the sand, his hands lingering on the child’s shoulders. He wanted so desperately for her to be Sarah, his little girl, that he couldn’t stop his tears from flowing. “I‘m sorry. I thought—I thought you were my daughter. You have the same hair...her mother’s hair.”  
“Did I do something wrong?” The girl murmured, looking a little sad as she watched Heartman compose himself.  
“No. No, of course not.” He sat down beside her, wiping tears and sand from his face. “What’s your name?”  
“Mia.”  
“My friends call me Heartman.” He forced a smile onto his face. Mia didn’t smile back. “It’s because of my heart. You see, your heart normally looks like this,” he drew a rough anatomical sketch of it on the sand with his finger, then beside it, his heart-shaped-heart. “But this is what mine looks like.”  
Mia was smiling now as she compared his drawings. She pointed at his misshapen heart. “I like that one better.”  
Heartman laughed quietly. He didn’t feel the same, but said, “As do I.”  


Eventually, she looked out at the sea. “Have you seen my daddy? He told me to wait for him.” 

This was her Beach. And she was all alone, like him. Heartman’s thoughts came in waves, dragging him under. 

In visiting the Beaches of others, he had arrived to the conclusion that the people he saw were still alive in some form—physical, spiritual, perhaps both. He could still reunite with his family spiritually, that much he believed. Their _ka_ might be long gone, but their _ha_ was still on the Beach, waiting for him. One day…

Perhaps Mia was still alive. But where was her family? Were they caught in the voidouts too? The questions swam in his troubled mind. He always left the Beach with more questions than answers.

“I’m afraid not.” He admitted. “What does he look like?”  
She absentmindedly drew smileys and hearts on the sand where his drawings had been. “He said he wouldn’t leave me.”  
“Don’t worry, Mia.” Heartman placed a placating hand on her shoulder, then looked out at the sea with her. “He will come back.” 

Mia stared at Heartman with beady eyes, ready to flutter shut at a moment’s notice. She looked tired but reassured. “Will you stay with me?” Mia asked. The softness of her voice made it hard to hear her over the waves. 

Tears stung Heartman’s eyes again. He couldn’t bring himself to lie. In a few hours, the tar-blackened hands of BTs would rise from the sands and drag him back to the side of the living. She would be alone again, and so would he. They would never see each other again. How can he hope to explain that someone, let alone to a child? 

Heartman drew Mia in close, and she leaned her small head against his chest. He smoothed over stray wisps of her golden hair with his clubbed fingers.

“I will stay with you for as long as I can.” He promised. “Cross my heart.”


	6. Lockne

It was afternoon when another rainstorm settled over Mountain Knot City. Lockne didn’t know why, but the rain made her uneasy these days. There were things far worse than a little timefall: terrorists, tar, not to mention BTs. It seemed like every day they were losing packages to someone or something. 

The sound of her typing melded with the steady drum of rain. She sat at the desk meant solely for the Head of Distribution, Aaron Hill, marked by a holoplaque with his name on it. Lockne’s office was the one across from his. Most of her files were digital, which meant less clutter and paperwork.

“Hey, boss.” Aaron, who was her actual boss, knocked on the metal doorframe. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”  


“This is your office, Aaron. You don’t have to ask.”  


“I know, I know.” He conceded, waiting for her to look up from her cuff link screen. “You’re not with Bridges anymore, but you still call the shots around here. Which is why I gotta ask.“  


Aaron walked up to the window, probably to watch the timefall. Or to avoid direct eye contact. Lockne could tell he was intimidated by her, with the way he always stood at arm’s length or with something between them, be it a desk or a tower of packages.  


“You know Sam Porter Bridges? _The_ Sam Porter Bridges? He’s the one they’re sending to help with the tar situation.” Aaron kept an eye on the window as if the man would arrive at that very instant. They were outside of the network, but word still traveled about the famed porter on a one man journey to unify the country—all in the name of patriotism. 

Lockne didn’t buy any of it. 

“Do you think he might actually bring this country together?”

Lockne stopped typing, pondering the question. The optimism in his voice made her smile somewhat; a rare sight. She didn’t want to rain on his Sam Porter parade just yet, so she let him talk. He loved hearing himself talk.  


“Man can delivery anything and everything. He’s a legend. Makes me wanna head out west too, see what’s over yonder.” He leaned closer to the glass, the half-light making his stubble appear darker than it really was. “Once he brings us into the chiral network, who knows what we can achieve.”

“We’re not joining the UCA.” Lockne remarked. “Between containing the tar and keeping those terrorists away, we have enough problems as is.” She flicked her cuff link and projected a schematic of the city in front of them. In seconds, a light blue Mountain Knot emerged in front of them, coruscating like a dying star. At over 84,000 inhabitants, the city’s infrastructure was threatening to collapse in on itself. A tar pit beneath one of the sectors had been slowly eating away at the building’s foundations. Lockne caught it in time to request an emergency order from Bridges.

“The request was only for the antimatter bomb. To stop the tar from spreading.” Lockne stared at Aaron through the holo, her brown eyes sharpening to a point. “Not to join the UCA.”  
Aaron stood on the other side of his desk, opposite Lockne. He planted his palms on the metal but didn’t lean forward. “The UCA’s supposed to bring people together. Reconnect us. I thought that’s why you joined Bridges in the first place."  


The holo of the city condensed into a single point before disappearing entirely. On her way out, Lockne stopped in front of Aaron. “That was before.” _Målingen._ Ever since she severed their bond, her life was suddenly categorized into two distinct timelines. Before and after Målingen. 

“Before what?” Aaron asked after her. Lockne said nothing and left the room.


	7. Mama

Mama was left alone in Heartman's lab. She could make out the forms of bookshelves, desks, and couches—his living room, she guessed. What appeared to be a whale skeleton took up nearly the entire ceiling, and she avoided standing directly under it as if it could somehow fall on her. The whale was accompanied by other sculptures: white figures of BTs floated over the room like ghosts, waiting to join Heartman on his frequent journeys to the Beach. On one wall was a row of clear glass display cases, showcasing different rocks. She only recognized one of them from their expedition, a stalactite about the length of her arm.

There was a liquor decanter on one desk, piles of paperwork on another. The latter was more cluttered and had a small end table next to it with a family picture: a smiling Heartman with his wife and young daughter, no bulky AED strapped to his chest. He wore a genuinely happy smile, not just the smiling mask of someone forced to play the accommodating host. A facade she saw right through.

For years, all Bridges,—and by extension, Mama, —knew about Heartman was that his family was caught in a voidout. She still remembered the day she found out, how broken he sounded. She didn’t know that he had been living alone, in almost complete isolation, the only correspondence being his research emails to Bridges.

Mama walked over to where Heartman was resting. She never liked referring to him as dead when he was like this, despite knowing that he technically was. All three of his monitors read _CARDIAC ARREST_ in all caps, red against white, like an ominous digital gravestone. There was always a small chance he wouldn’t come back, a thought that haunted her then and even now. Whenever it started to feel like more than three minutes, she got worried. He didn’t appear to be in any pain, his expression a blank, lifeless death mask devoid of emotion. The light from the frosted window cast a soft glow on his already pale face, and the worry lines around his eyes and mouth had all but disappeared. Heartman looked content, almost peaceful, at rest. 

A mechanical voice broke the silence. “ _Administering shock. Stand clear._ ” Heartman’s defibrillator. Mama backed away. It whirred and thumped to life, and in an instant, Heartman was upright on his bed. He gasped for air. The first thing he did was gently tap the bottom of the hourglass beside him against the wooden table. 

“Sorry, where were we?” Heartman took off his glasses, wiping away tears with the back of his gloved hand. Before long, he was back to his typing. “We were, um, catching up?” 

Mama watched him as if he would lose consciousness again. She tried not to worry too much, for her baby’s sake, but how couldn’t she? If his AED malfunctioned and no one was around, what then? 

“You said that not much has changed,” Mama reminded him. “Your heart hasn’t gotten any better, has it?”

He looked up briefly, flashing her a reassuring smile. It was clear he wasn’t used to having anyone worry about him anymore. He was normally ready to answer anything and everything straightaway, his brain a storage unit of pre-constructed explanations waiting to be retrieved at the right moment. Now, however, he was formulating words on the spot. 

“No. It hasn’t,” Heartman admitted, his voice distant. “It has been over a year now...but the pain lingers.” Heartman walked over to where his family photo was. He picked it up and stared at it for a long while. Mama eventually felt as if she was intruding on him, that he wanted to be alone. Just then, he set the photo down and acknowledged her again. “I was in the ICU having heart surgery—outside of the city. I had asked my family to grab some things for me. Then they were caught in a voidout.

“If I hadn’t asked them to go back...” he trailed off. 

Mama couldn’t hold his gaze and looked down. She heard the regret in his voice, the weight of the words too heavy to carry alone. She was no stranger to loss, but hearing it from another was a different pain entirely. She could do nothing but listen—which, to her, wasn’t enough. He had been carrying this burden for the past three years, and not once had he made it known to anyone but her. 

Heartman pulled up an image of his heart on the screen. A heart-shaped-heart. His gaze was one of clinical detachment, as if he were staring at someone else’s heart, trying to make sense of it.  
“It’s my damned heart’s fault that we were torn apart,” he lamented. “But it is also the reason why we may see each other again.”  
“...How?” Mama still asked. She knew the answer but wanted to hear it from him, to make certain—maybe even try to change his mind. He’ll see them in the afterlife. In death.  
“You know that I walk the Beaches of others. That means that one day, I may be able to find theirs. One day…” Heartman said. As Mama unpacked his words, the man had already jumped onto his next task. He crossed the living room and made his way over to his rusted gramophone, setting the needle down delicately. The room filled with the soft lilt of a piano, flighty in one instant then come in the next. She recognized the composition as one of Bach’s.  
“Do you still listen to music? Watch movies?” Heartman asked, trying to diffuse the tension that had settled between them. She nodded understandingly and looked around his room some more.  
“I like space movies. _Gravity, Apollo 13,_ that sort of thing.” Mama kept her eyes on the whale skeleton, slowly making her way directly beneath it so she could see Heartman better. “I don’t think I ever told you that I used to play the piano?“ he shook his head, so she went on. “We were classically trained when we were little. Lockne took up the violin, and I played the piano. I recognize that piece. It’s one of Bach’s Goldberg variations—the Aria.”  
Heartman gave her a thumbs up and twenty likes. It made Mama smile. “Cool whale, by the way.” She said, trying not to spend too much time in the limelight of their conversation. The less he knew about her nowadays, the better.  
“Thanks. I carved it up myself.”  
“Yeah right.” Mama gave him an unconvinced head shake.  
“Oh, ye of little faith.” Heartman joined her side, hands clasped behind his back as he stared up at the creature. “ _Eschrichtius robustus,_ the gray whale. It was a ‘gift’ from Edward. By gift, I mean he likely didn’t have room left in his private locker. So naturally, he offered it to me,” he smiled at it proudly. In his mind’s eye, he was probably picturing what it looked like when it was still alive. Mama wished she could see what he was seeing. “Beautiful, isn’t it? These great creatures once roamed the seas unencumbered, but were wiped out near the end of the Permian period.”  
“The second of the Big Five,” she added.  
Heartman gave her another thumbs up and twenty likes. “Well done. They survived the— _five minutes remaining_ —oh shut up!” he pushed a button on his defibrillator. “I’m putting you on mute. Not you.”  
“I could design a better AED for you,” she offered, squinting at the bulky lockbox that was his new defibrillator. “Something more compact, easier to carry around? With a volume button if you want. I develop things for Sam all the time.”  
“This damned thing has seen better days. It pains me to say it, but I miss the older model,” he conceded. “I believe Sam is in greater need of your expertise at the moment. I will, however, take your offer into consideration.” Heartman looked at the wing-shaped odradek perched on her shoulder, eyeing it curiously. “You’ve upgraded your odradek.”  
Mama nodded, turning around so he could get a better look. He got quiet for a bit. In fact, she wasn’t even sure if he was looking at it until he asked, “You’re still doing field research on BTs, hence yours and Deadman’s question regarding their potential demise...?”  
“Nope. I haven’t done fieldwork in forever,” Mama checked on her baby, still sound asleep. “I thought I could use one. You never know,” she shrugged, hoping he wouldn’t press her for more information.  
“A wise decision. Beached Things, as we both know, are incredibly dangerous,” he said, his gaze fixed on the inanimate ones hanging overhead. “But we must come to understand them, lest we may never understand the Stranding. There are myriad theories as to what they may be. As for where they go after Sam…” he gestured vaguely.  
“Shits on them?”  
“Shits on them.” Heartman cracked a laugh. “There is one theory that postulates that BTs might be the souls of the departed who are trying to reach out to us. To the world of the living. But what does that make our world to them? The other side, or a sort of purgatory?  


“Nevertheless, I believe the pivotal question remains the same: _is_ there an afterlife? Be it human, BT, or AI? That is the question. I personally don’t believe that AIs have an afterlife...but I digress.”

Mama had forgotten how efficient Heartman was at zeroing in on things, so soon after coming back from the Beach, no less. Presently, she didn’t try to ponder the question, but made a mental note to turn it over in her mind later. She was about to ask if he believed there was an afterlife for the others when Ellie began to cry. The timefall had picked up and woken her. Heartman turned to the direction of the sound, then realized it was outside of his holocall’s field of vision. 

“That’s right. Your daughter.” Heartman confessed, looking a bit embarrassed. “I’m sorry for keeping you.”

She waved his apology away. “I needed a break.”  
  


#### •••

  


Mama held Ellie closer to her sore breasts. In the stillness of her lab, she could hear the baby’s breathing—or what she thought was her breathing. There was still so much she didn’t know about BT babies and motherhood. Mama wasn’t even sure if the breastmilk she was producing could be given to a BT somehow, or if BTs ate at all. There were no handbooks on how to raise a BT child, and Deadman, try as he may, could only answer so much. 

Then there was Heartman. Mama never told him about Ellie being a BT, and she had no intention of doing so. The more Bridges knew, the greater the danger her child would be in. It was exhausting, every conversation a delicate balancing act between what she could or couldn’t say.

Mama felt her baby’s hand on her chest. Her DOOMS, much like Sam’s, only allowed her to see a vague outline of Ellie and other BTs. Her little hands reached for her face, and Mama squeezed them gently.

“You’re not dangerous,” she whispered. The rain picked up, the lights flickered. Ellie whimpered and curled into a tight ball against her chest. “Shh, shh. Want mama to sing to you? So you can fall asleep?”

Mama closed her eyes and hummed softly. Whenever she sang, her eyes filled with tears, of sadness, joy, and longing. It reminded her of when Lockne sang to her belly when Ellie was still in the womb. The baby’s favorite was _Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star._

“Mama’s little star,” she whispered, kissing the baby’s small head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In a previous version, I wrote that "Heartman pulled up an x-ray of his heart on the screen." "X-ray" has been corrected to "image" for clarity.


	8. Lockne

Lockne’s private room used to belong to a porter whose name she would rather forget. By all accounts, the nameless porter existed only in her memory. She deleted the hundreds or so holovids, messages, and emails they had accumulated over the span of two years. Afterwards, she made several trips to the city’s recycling center, carrying one box of personal effects after another. One box full of girl’s baby clothes, four boxes of holorecordings, one box for her wedding gown and shoes. This was how she moved on, how she cut people out of her life—wholly, without looking back.

Lockne thought she only had to do this with her late fiancé. She never expected to do it with Målingen, too. Her own twin sister.

She laid on the king-sized bed, waiting for sleep to take her. The DOOMS nightmares always woke her in the middle of the night, gasping for air. Some nights, the dreams were so vivid and grotesque that she stayed up instead, reading up on the Stranding, the tar, antimatter. It was more productive than waiting to fall asleep. She couldn’t sleep. Not when the tar hasn’t been contained. Not when the city was relying on her to fix everything.

Lockne got up from her bed, then made her way to the sink. She inched closer to its screen mirror until it activated. In the darkness, the face it projected had the ghostly parlor of a Baroque portrait, dark black hair disappearing into the background. Lockne ran her hands through her hair, holding it up in a ponytail to see what she would look like. 

Then, invariably, her thoughts wandered to Målingen. Almost every trail of thought led back to her. Was she unable to sleep because Målingen couldn’t? Did they share the same nightmares, the same dreams? 

Lockne let her hair down then held her own face in her hands. She closed her eyes and willed Målingen to feel what she felt now: the intensity of her solitude, the weight of an entire city on her shoulders. Her burning, almost fervent desire to see her child. The anger she felt at herself, at Målingen, for not reaching out. 

But she felt nothing.


	9. Heartman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A gentle reminder to keep the warning tags of this fanfic in mind. This will be the first instance where they're shown, but they will be mentioned and described later on as well. These warnings also apply to some of the songs at the end of the chapters; listening to them is entirely optional.

The Beach’s gray sand stretched on for miles into a solemn horizon. The whole world was desaturated, the ocean a muted gray that melted into an equally gray sky. The last time Heartman was on a Beach like this, he watched his family and a thousand strangers slowly march into the sea. 

As Heartman walked through the sand, alone, a familiar fear swelled in the pit of his stomach. A cold flame had been lit inside him and threatened to burn him from the inside out. He felt it when he returned to the Beach so soon after losing his family—forty two minutes after the hospital’s backup generator went online. It was the first time he realized that he would wake up, in the world of the living, and his family would not be waiting for him. It was the first time he realized that he was truly, unequivocally, alone. 

He glanced at the sea once more, knowing it wouldn’t be long before his mind conjured up an image of his family. He blinked a few times and there they were: Miriam holding Sarah’s hand as they walked towards the sea. Little Sarah with her wool sweater that was one size too big, because she liked hiding her hands in the sleeves whenever she felt cold. 

“Please, don’t go.” Heartman murmured, as their figures gradually blurred with his tears. “Don’t leave without me.” 

By the time he wiped his tears away, they were gone.

Heartman kept walking. He walked along the narrow strip of sand beside the seemingly boundless gray waters, mentally committing certain details to memory. There were no pebbles in the sand, and the beached whales he came across were in varying states of decomposition, some recently washed ashore while others mere husks of the creatures they once were. No footprints on the sand either, only his own. 

He had been walking for what felt like an hour when he spotted a frail, older woman in the distance. The old woman stood barefoot on the sand, watching the sea with a forlorn look in her eyes. Heartman approached her. Once he saw her face, he recognized her. The pieces fell into place in his mind: the colorless beach; the desolate gray of the shoreline, the unnerving silence of the waves. 

She was the one who woke him up that day—the day he lost his family. The one who stopped him from marching into the sea with Miriam and Sarah. The one who separated him from them forever. When he approached, the woman turned to him and slowly raised a finger to her lips, shushing him.

“You...” He remembered her wrinkled face and deep set eyes, the scrawny finger that she had used to shush him. There was no one else on this Beach but them. 

“You were the one who woke me on the Beach. You stopped me. Why—why did you stop me? I could’ve been with my family. I would've...I would’ve moved on with them.” Heartman struggled to express his frustration. He wanted to be angry with her, to make her understand the immeasurable pain he was in. But all he felt was hopelessness. 

“Why didn’t you just let me die?” He finally asked.

The woman slowly moved her finger away from her lips and pointed at him. Then to the sea. She walked towards it, listlessly, the way she did when he first saw her. 

“Wait, where—where are you going?” Heartman instinctively reached for her. He called the woman again. No answer. He watched her walk into the sea, the waves crashing all around her until her figure disappeared. There was nothing left of her. It was as if she was never there.

Heartman followed her. 

The footprints he left behind disappeared with the ebb and flow of the tide. He marched to the sea slowly, his heart heavy with grief. He had been walking these shores for almost a decade, and each time he looked out at the sea, he couldn’t shake the thought of joining his family. The call to the void like a siren song, luring him deeper and deeper into the water. 

He listened. It wasn’t long until he waded past the shallows, the water lapping against his chest. It comforted him, like a cold healing spring that melted away his sorrows. All he needed to do was walk forward, close his eyes, let the waves drag him under. 

After the Beach, there was only the afterlife. If he drowned here, he would not wake up in the world of the living. 

He could see his family again. 

The water pushed against his entire body. He lost his footing and kicked against nothing. It felt as if weights were tied around his ankles, and he sank into the depths, helpless. The hollow echo of water replaced the silence, tunneling through his eardrums. He gasped. Water flooded his mouth. He was drowning, he was drowning. 

Amid the echos of the sea, he heard their voices. Perhaps this was the song he had been resisting for years. Rather than fear or melancholy, he felt something closer to hope stirring inside his chest. He opened his eyes and looked up at the sky one last time, the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel filtering through the soft waves. 

“ _I’ll bring them. We’ll be back soon, okay?_ ” 

He clutched his chest. Felt water swirling in his lungs. Darkness closed around his peripherals as he watched his glasses drift away from him. Into the light. 

The world had gone dark. Still. For an instant, he was weightless—a leaf drifting across water, barely breaking the surface. Floating one moment and gone the next. All along, he had been waiting to break through the surface. All along, he was adrift and alone...

“ _Promise you’ll come back, daddy?_ ”

Heartman felt a pair of hands tug at his collar, pulling him up. His lifeless arms flailed with the force of the pull, and his head was thrust above water. There was air. He gasped as if he had been revived and hauled himself back to shore. His fingernails filled with sand as he crawled away from the water, panting, heaving. The wind turned the wet areas of his body into ice. He laid on his back and stared up at the sky. The clouds had given way to sunlight, the soft warmth settling into his tired bones. 

He looked around and saw no one.

#### •••

> _Beach #216,450_  
> 
> 
> I found myself on a black-and-white Beach. The waves were a drab gray, as were the sands and the sky, my whole body. I saw someone from the day of the voidouts. If memory serves, she was the elderly woman who ordered me to stay quiet that day. She stopped me from saving them. She didn’t say anything to me as she walked to the ocean, intending to drown. 
> 
> I tried to follow her. I don’t know if it was a BT or someone—something else, but I was pulled out of the water before I could go through with it.
> 
> Still no sign of them.

A week had gone by since Heartman last spoke to anyone. He had fallen into his routine again: death, resuscitate, research, repeat. For sanity’s sake, he set aside time to read, listen to music, and relax in his healing springs. Between his research and trips to the Beach, weeks felt like months to him. Still, no sign of his family. 

Heartman had just resuscitated when a call came in through his cuff link. It was Thomas Hucksley, an old friend from his expedition days.

“Hey Heartman, it’s Tom. I hope it’s not a bad time.” Thomas ran a hand his through his hair. He always looked like he had returned from an expedition, with his dirt-streaked uniform and perpetually baggy eyes.  
“Thomas. You always catch me with my pants down.”  
“That’s what I do best.”  
They shared a laugh, and it felt as if no time had passed between their last conversation, about a year or two ago. Heartman gestured with his head for Thomas to follow, and he brought him over to his collection of rocks, each one fitted with a podium and glass display case. “I’m sorry I didn’t show this to you right away. My research has taken up most of my free time these days.” He confessed.  
“Wow, Heartman. You‘ve been busy...” Thomas’ holo walked along the line of display cases. They were unlabeled,—Heartman memorized them—, and the geologist was likely identifying them as he went. He made his way back to Heartman’s side, his arm moving as if to clasp him on the back. 

When Heartman began to search for his family, he limited his communications with people, until he eventually cut ties with everyone. First it was Deadman, then Fragile. Then Lockne and Mama. The only connection he maintained was with Bridges HQ. Thomas was one of few people who genuinely respected him, who showed him not the begrudging respect of someone forced to work in a team, but a respect built on mutual admiration. 

“I wish I had more time to catch up with you,” Thomas began, rubbing his tired eyes with his palms. “I haven’t been getting much sleep. It's these damned nightmares...I thought you might be able to make sense of them.

“I keep finding myself on a Beach. The sky would open up, and a massive black hole would appear outta nowhere. Then BTs would start falling through it by the thousands, like someone opened up the Beach and this was their only way in. After that, the voidouts would start. One voidout after another. Sometimes I wake up before the explosion...other times.” Thomas trailed off. Heartman turned away from him and walked over to the window, looking out at the heart-shaped lake that was visible from his lab. He thought of his family, how frightened they must’ve been moments before the voidout took their lives. But they at least died together—that was all that mattered to him. 

“You’re still working with chiralium.” Heartman reproached. They were both aware of the dangers of chiral contamination: dizziness, headaches, insomnia. If left unchecked, it led to suicidal tendencies. “You know how dangerous it is to non-DOOMS sufferers. I believe you’re suffering from chiral contamination.”

“I know.” Thomas hung his head in shame. The diagnosis wasn’t what he came for. Heartman walked up to him, searching the geologists' face for the real reason behind his visit. Eventually, Thomas said, “The nightmares made me realize something. You suffer from DOOMS, so these nightmares are probably child’s play to you. And with your condition, it means you’re at the Beach all the time, right? I’ve only been to the Beach sixteen times, but I’m scared shitless—I don’t wanna die.” 

Heartman wished he could put a hand on his shoulder, but all he could do was hover his arm around him. “You’re not going to die. I’m placing an order with Headquarters for anti-chiralium medication right away.” Heartman pulled up an order screen on his cuff link, typing up the quantity, description, and recipient, then marking it as urgent. All the while, Thomas paced around the room, scrubbing his hands up and down his face. He seemed to have calmed down somewhat, but something was still troubling him.

“I didn’t just call you because of my nightmares.” Thomas said. “I came here because I was worried about you.” Heartman put his screen away and gave him a puzzled look. If he was really worried about him, if he really cared, he would’ve reached out to him sooner. It was a selfish, inconsiderate thought, since Heartman could’ve done the same, but a thought that came to mind nonetheless. The fact that Thomas’ call came in around the same time as his nightmares wasn’t lost on him.

“I suggest you worry about your condition, not mine. As you’ve said, I visit the Beach regularly. The nightmares are...inconvenient, but tolerable.” Heartman explained, purposely downplaying how little sleep he has been getting. “Get some rest.” 

Thomas stood in Heartman’s way, knowing he wouldn’t walk past him, even as a holo. “What happened to you?

“You know, I used to look up to you. Hell, I wanted to _be_ you. Everyone on the expedition team knew that if one of us ever had a breakthrough in the Stranding...it would be you. Even Edward thought so—you know how upset he gets when his name is last on a paper? 

"Our research would help humanity, give hope to the hopeless. You told me that once.” Thomas looked at him expectantly. When Heartman didn’t meet his gaze, the geologist stood in front of him.

“Do you still care about any of that? About what’s here, right now. Not the Beach.” He urged. “Look, I’m sorry about your family. I’m sorry that this happened to you—because you sure as hell didn’t deserve it. But I can’t stand seeing you like live like this...it’s like you died that day too. I lost a colleague...I lost my friend.”

“I _did_ die that day, Tom.” Heartman said, unable to look him in the eye. “I am already dead. I’ve been dead...everything of importance to me is no longer here. It’s on the other side, at the Beach.” He returned to his spot by the window, looking out at the snow-covered Beach that was the lake. Some days, when he strained to look in the midst of a snowstorm, he saw them: two figures, a mother and a child, waving at him. They would appear for a fraction of a second then disappear. But he knew it was them: Miriam and Sarah. Looking at the lake was like looking at his own heart, and his family was there, waiting. He just had to keep looking. To stop looking for them was akin to letting them die a second time, of committing _damnatio memoriae_ against his own family, his own soul, his _ka_ and theirs. 

“If you were me, you would do the same.” Heartman remarked. “If you were given a chance, albeit an infinitesimal chance, at finding your departed family again...wouldn’t you take it? I have sixty opportunities per day. You may see it as a curse, but this affliction of mine is the best chance I have at finding them. This damned heart of mine tore us apart, but it will bring us together again.”

Thomas looked out at the lake with him. “When you find them...what then?”

For once, Heartman didn’t have an answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Drown (Cover) - Seafret](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shZFp5C8lPg)  
> Originally by Bring Me The Horizon
> 
> (Warning tags apply).


	10. Mama

For the past few weeks, Mama had been hard at work on several projects at once. Her desk was in a perpetual state of entropy; situated in the main entrance of the lab, it was home to several physics textbooks, baby books, and boxes of spare tools. One wing over was the garage, or the hospital waiting room turned garage, where a bulk of the noise emanated from. The repetitive sound of power drills and welding torches reverberated against the cold metal walls, while repair bots rolled across the room and back. The scent of burning metal mingled with the perpetual petrichor in the air. Ellie didn’t seem to mind the smell as she slept by the ceiling, floating above one of the Bridges trucks that Mama worked on.

Mama laid on a mechanic’s creeper, running a wire brush against the underside of the truck. The light of her cuff link illuminated the labyrinthine metalwork, and she used it to spot patches of rust and dirt. The creeper’s wheels creaked whenever she rolled out and in, which she had to do frequently. Despite the ample light, the truck’s tight underside was enough to make her claustrophobic. Mama rolled out again. 

“Can you hand me that rag?” Mama directed one of the repair bots to grab it for her. The bot slowly pinched it with its metal claw, then deposited it into her outstretched hands. “Good job,” she commended. The bot made a happy chirp then rolled away. Theoretically, she could program one of the bots to scrub the rust for her, but chose not to. As mundane as it was, the task gave her a much needed break from her Bridges projects. Mama knew herself well enough that, if she never had Ellie, she would devote all her time to work. 

_If she never had Ellie._ The thought came to mind like a daydream, its entrance quiet and imperceptible, noticed only when it was well underway. It played out in her mind’s eye with sudden clarity: Mama wouldn’t have been in this hospital when it was attacked by terrorists. She wouldn’t have given birth in the rubble some fifty feet away from where she stood now, in the dark recess of exposed metal beams and twisted cables that was still visible behind a clear glass wall. Mama approached the glass and pressed her hand against it, staring out into the cold space where she laid, helpless, pinned down, for what felt like weeks on end. If she never had Ellie, she wouldn’t be afraid of dark, tight spaces, or of being left alone, without anyone to hear her scream or wail. She could leave this godforsaken place and feel the warmth of day on her cold skin again. She could be free.

If she never had Ellie, she would still have Lockne. 

Mama went back to her desk and pulled up a schematic she was developing. An improved cuff link for Sam, with a golden hook attached to it. Since his blood was effective against BTs, he could use it to cut their umbilical cords—sending them back to the other side. To the world of the dead. Once they were free, they wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone. No human contact meant no necrosis, no voidout. 

Maybe there was a BT afterlife, like Deadman and Heartman mentioned. Mama liked to think there was one; she didn’t think BTs were the souls of the dead until she gave birth to one. And if there was no afterlife for her baby, it meant there might be none for her—or anyone for that matter.

It wasn’t death that frightened her most. It was the thought that there could be nothing, that one day she would die and that was that—no afterwards. Only nothingness, like a black hole, dark and absolute. There was a selfish part of her that wanted recompense for all the sacrifices she’d made, as if the grief and suffering meant that God somehow owed her something. She deserved a decent afterlife, as did Deadman and Heartman. Haven’t they all suffered enough? 

After all they’ve been through, her and her child deserved more than being stuck in the same place for the rest of their lives. 

The lights in her lab flickered then died again. Ellie started to cry soon after. Mama gently tugged at their umbilical cord, guiding her baby into her arms. The baby cried and cried and cried. 

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Mama murmured. She grabbed a toy pinwheel and tried to soothe her with it. “We can’t go on like this. Mama will figure something out. She always does.”


	11. Lockne

The war room resembled a hangar in its construction, the high-ceiling and lack of decoration giving it a cold, detached air. Metal buttresses lined the roof and terminated at a wall covered almost entirely by a ubiquitous Bridges logo. A circular metal table marked the center of the room, its surface so spotless that it could be mistaken for a mirror. Only four of the ten chairs were occupied; the other six were present via holocall. Once a month, a few Head of Distros from across the country met in an open forum to discuss topics of interest. Lockne thought it was simply another way for Bridges to keep them in check. 

Aaron, who sat at Lockne’s right, nudged her shoulder. “Psst. Guy on the right. Black turtleneck.” He kept his eyes on him. “What’s that supposed to be on his head...a polar bear?”  
"It has whiskers.”  
“Bears didn’t have whiskers?”

Lockne squinted at Aaron, who sunk into his chair in mock shame. As he waited for the other Heads to sync up to the city’s personal network, he flipped through his notebook and skimmed his notes. He once called himself an ‘old soul trapped in a digital age,’ and the more time Locke spent with him, the more she understood. 

Since the forum was being held at their location this time around, Aaron had to facilitate it. Their cuff links beeped once, which signaled that everyone was finally connected. Aaron turned the holotable on and officially began the meeting. A three-dimensional model of Mountain Knot City appeared in front of them. It gradually transformed into a massive floor plan, each city district labeled with the number of current residents.

“Mountain Knot City has 84,014 inhabitants.” Aaron began, assuming a more professional demeanor. He smiled at the person sitting beside him, one of two local representatives: a woman who, Lockne guessed, was seven or eight months pregnant.  
“Which will be 84,015 very, very soon. We’re in the middle of dealing with a tar situation. Safety measures have been put in place, and containment is currently sitting at around eight to ten percent, give or take.” The floor map of the city glowed red in certain areas, indicating the sectors hit hardest by the tar. “Bridges is aware of the situation. Sam Porter Bridges is on his way here as we speak. He’ll be carrying an antimatter bomb that should stop the tar from spreading.”  
“An antimatter _bomb_? Is that safe?” Bear Hat asked, and the others exchanged nods in agreement.  
“If handled properly, yes.” Lockne answered. Rather than staving off their worries, it only seemed to exacerbate them. She held up a hand and explained. “Antimatter bombs are regularly used to clear tar for excavation projects. Rest assured, they’re not easily acquired, and have built-in magnetic traps to ensure stability. As for its deliverer: Bridges wouldn’t entrust a delicate package to just any porter. They have to be one of the best.”  
“I’ve met the guy, he’s great! Your package is in good hands,” said Bear Hat, more relaxed than before. The others remained ill-at-ease, but seemed content with the explanation, at least for the moment. Lockne felt Aaron’s eyes on her, and when she glanced at him, their eyes met. He looked proud at the reception his hero was getting.  


Phillip North, Head of Distro north of their city, raised a quiet hand. His voice sounded hushed through the call, but Lockne knew it wasn’t far from how he actually sounded. “Sam Porter Bridges is also the one they’re sending to reconnect the chiral network. He’s inviting others to join the UCA.” He said. “Are you planning on joining?”  
Aaron stepped in. “We haven’t decided on—“  
“Mountain Knot City will not be joining the UCA or the chiral network.”  
“Why not?” Another Head interjected, a man with a voice of a foghorn.  
“It is not up for debate.”  
“This is an open forum,” the Head continued. “I think it’s worth mentioning that everyone in this room, except for your city, has joined the network and the UCA.” A silent agreement fell among them. No one corrected the observation—they have all, in fact, joined the network.  
Across the room, a sharp-voiced woman cut through the silence. “The minutes for this meeting says that Aaron Hill is the Head of Distro for Mountain Knot City.”  
Lockne spoke for him. “That is correct.”  
“And you are?”  
“I am Lockne. Overseer of Mountain Knot City.” She stood up from her seat. “We—I built the chiral network.

“When I designed the software for the network, it was a safer time. Terrorist attacks weren’t as prevalent as they are now. We all know what happened to Middle Knot and South Knot City. The attacks were made possible because it was _public_ knowledge that those cities were being integrated.” Lockne found herself looking to Aaron for support, but he looked more disappointed than anything. “It’s not a stretch to say that the attacks were likely meant to undermine the network. Whether deliberately or not...it’s all speculation at this point. What isn’t speculation is that Middle Knot is now ground zero, and thousands of lives were lost that day.

“One of them was Daniel. My fiancé.” Lockne admitted. She hadn’t spoken about him in years. Only Målingen knew what had happened to him—until now. The whole room was so quiet that the static of holos were audible.

“That is why I refuse to join the chiral network and the UCA.”

She felt a hand on her shoulder. It was Aaron, gently telling her that he’d take over from there. The rest of the meeting progressed slowly. Lockne didn’t say another word until the very end, when it came time to thank everyone for attending. North was the last to leave, his holo disappearing soon after he waved them goodbye. Aaron and Lockne were left alone.

They had been working together for almost two years now, and not once had Aaron stopped her from doing anything. Only now did it occur to Lockne that she had been waiting for some form of opposition from him. But to what end? Did she _want_ to be proven wrong about the network, to have someone change her mind about the UCA?

It struck her, then, that if Målingen were here, she would know what to do. She would be able to change her mind. Connected as they were, the sisters still had their fair share of disagreements. Målingen believed that bringing people together meant forming as many connections as possible: the greater the reach, the stronger the connection; Lockne had to remind her that they were only as strong as their weakest link. A few meaningful connections were still infinitely stronger than several loose ones. Some ties had to be broken to forge others.

They couldn’t be tied to everyone. Joining the UCA would do just that. 

“Lockne, all this time...I didn’t know.” Aaron hadn’t moved from his spot by the table. “There’s really no changing your mind. Is there?” 

Lockne stopped short of the door and turned to him. She wanted to tell him the truth: that there _was_ a way to change her mind. But she didn’t want to give him hope.

“The only one who can change my mind is gone.” Lockne said, knowing that Aaron would think it was her fiancé.


	12. Mama

Mama had fallen asleep with her head on the desk. It was late afternoon when her cuff link rang in her ears. Groggily, she flicked her wrist to decline the call—but patched it through instead. 

Heartman suddenly materialized beside her desk. The crackle of his holo nearly made her fall off her chair. She steadied herself against the desk and looked at him, wide-eyed and startled.

“Mama, it’s Heartman—oh, sorry.” He raised his hands in apology. “Did I wake you?”

“No, I mean—yes. I should be awake by now, anyway.” Mama languidly turned her head to check on Ellie, who was still asleep, then proceeded to make her herself look more presentable. She turned away from Heartman and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, then put away a book or two, not entirely sure why she was doing it. Appearances—the lab’s and her own—were something she didn’t care much for. Makeup, haircare, choosing what specific perfume to wear—those were Lockne things. Mama was content with throwing her hair up in a ponytail and calling it a day.

Heartman waited for her to compose herself before he began. “I stumbled upon something in my research that has been troubling me as of late.” 

He took a few steps back from her desk, staring up at the diagrams she still had up. Images of various cuff link models and maze-like circuit boards floated in the foreground, all superimposed against a staticky Bridges logo. “If you don’t mind my asking, do you often get nightmares, brought on by your DOOMS?”

Mama walked over to her mechanic’s drawer, grabbing a spare rag to wipe her desk with. She looked out at the rubble ahead, her gaze growing distant. The rubble filled with tar, and every small crevice bled black. The stray electrical wires that hung overhead turned into BT strands. “I used to get them almost every night. I would wake up on the Beach...my baby in my arms.” Her free hand gently stroked the umbilical cord binding her and Ellie together. “Whenever I got closer to the ocean, it would turn black—into a tar pit. BTs started coming up from the tar, just one or two at first, then a whole army of them. I ran and ran and ran. I had to protect her. I didn’t want them to take her away from me.” Mama said. Heartman made his way over to her, sympathy in his blue eyes.

“I’m sorry.” He murmured. “You’re not alone in seeing such things. When I’m not wandering the Beach in death, I wander it in my nightmares.” 

Mama met his gaze and held it. He stood so closely that she could see the glare of his holo refracting on her glasses. She saw how blue his eyes were, bluer still with the light of his cuff link against his face. When Heartman caught her searching his face, he turned away.  
“An old colleague informed me of the nightmares he has been having.” Heartman explained, assuming his usual deadpan delivery. “It sounded strangely like the nightmares we DOOMS sufferers regularly have, except his was brought on by a nasty bout of chiralium contamination.”  
“Is he okay now?” She walked past him but not through him, then got to work wiping down her desk.  
“Yes, for now. A delivery bot with anti-chiralium medication is currently on its way to him. Though I fear Sam will have to deliver a few more cases of it once that supply is depleted.” Heartman looked down and took a few steps forward, as if following some physical trail of thought. “One would think that these nightmares only came about after the Death Stranding, when DOOMS became prevalent. But I’ve put together a theory: that these nightmares have plagued the general population long _before_ the Stranding.” He flicked his cuff link and pulled up a wall of images right above her desk. Mama stood next to him to get a closer look.

Projected in a gallery wall in front of them were digitized paintings, their styles and subjects varying widely. Some bore thick, prominent brushstrokes while others were soft and delicate, almost blurry. One of a voluptuous woman lying in bed, lithe form draped in white, with what appeared to be a small demon crouched on her stomach.[1] Another showed a BT-looking animal on all fours, ruined matchsticks for limbs, its small head covered entirely in bandages.[2]

Mama tried to discern a pattern ahead of Heartman’s explanation, but the only thing that stuck out to her was how strange and macabre they all were. Her skin crawled at the sight of them.

“The basis for this theory is the art of certain Pre-Stranding artists.” Heartman said, looking at her again for the first time since earlier. He caught wind of her unease and explained himself. “You must find these rather strange. You see, I collect paintings with unusual subject matter.”  
“I can see that.” Mama wore a sly smile as she glanced between Heartman and the painting of the woman.  
“Not always of an erotic nature—not that there’s anything wrong with that particular subject matter. If it’s well executed, the end result can be highly satisfying.”

At this point, Mama wasn’t sure if he was still talking about the paintings; she didn’t ask. He didn’t strike her as the type of person to put much value into sex nowadays, and considering his circumstances, it was likely the last thing on his mind. Mama decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. 

Heartman flicked his cuff link again, snapping Mama out of her thoughts. New paintings replaced the old ones. At first glance, they appeared to be by the same hand.

“Behold, one of my favorite Pre-Stranding artists: Salvador Dalí.” He declared. “Take a closer look at the backgrounds.”  
Mama skimmed each of the paintings. The color schemes would change, but it was clear what each one had in common. “They're all beaches.” She said.  
Heartman gave her a thumbs up and twenty likes. “Art historians believed he drew inspiration from the landscapes of his home in Catalonia. But what if he was painting not his surroundings, but his nightmares? His Beach?” He said, without looking at her.

He fell quiet, lost in Dali’s supposed Beach. She stared at him and expected to find excitement or wonder in his eyes; instead, there was only distant sadness. A silent understanding passed between them, then, and it didn’t take long for Mama to read the room. To read him.

“These paintings,” she said. “They’re not for you, are they?”

Heartman shook his head, a thin smile ghosting across his lips. He looked like he was about to elaborate, but his defibrillator interrupted him.

“We’ll continue this shortly.” Heartman walked back to bed slowly, as if he didn’t want to leave yet.

“Do you mind waiting for me until I get back?” he asked.

“I’m not going anywhere.” Mama said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] [_The Nightmare_ (1781) by Henry Fuseli](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nightmare#/media/File:John_Henry_Fuseli_-_The_Nightmare.JPG)
> 
> [2] [_Untitled_ by Zdzisław Beksiński](https://www.wikiart.org/en/zdislav-beksinski/untitled-36)
> 
> [My Heart - Ex: Re](https://open.spotify.com/track/4Wj04ytCTSSlMG3t0AN3ne)


	13. Heartman

Heartman woke up on a riverbed. The ground was a mosaic of multi-colored rocks, mostly weatherworn granite and banded jasper. As soon as he moved, his back ached. Pain shot through his legs. He felt older than he usually did, with his bad heart and bad knees and bad back. He held his cuff link up to block out the harsh sun, flicked his wrist. Nothing. 

He looked past the riverbank and saw a city; the distant rumble of trucks loud and foreboding, like the first signs of a thunderstorm. The ground was still wet from recent timefall. A few feet away, a river winded like an artery across striated rock, sandalweed, and tallgrass. Smog and rain clouds obscured parts of the faraway cityscape, and its spires appeared to rise endlessly into the sky. The blazing sunrise turned the facades of skyscrapers into chiralium gold.

This was only the second city he had woken up in. The first, some two years prior, belonged to a prepper who had never set foot outside of a shelter. Perhaps the owner of this ‘Beach’ was the same way. Heartman theorized that Beaches, when not tied to a war or voidout, reflected the owner’s perception of death and the afterlife. To that end, Beaches were highly individualized: no two Beaches were ever the same.

Heartman saw a truck emerge from the fog. It crossed a bridge further downstream, slowing to a stop a short distance away. A Bridges logo was emblazoned on its side. The driver stepped out of the truck, his red hair ablaze in the sunlight. He wore a Bridges jumpsuit like Sam’s, dark blue and zipped up all the way, obscuring his neck. Heartman gave a little wave as they walked towards each other. 

“You lost, friend?”  
“I am indeed.”  
“I am Heartman.” They shook hands like old friends. “I was part of the second expedition with—" he blanked. It occurred to him that he didn’t know Mama’s real name.  
“Daniel. First expedition, Bridges I.” There was a sudden somberness to his voice. He looked out at the distant city as if he wasn’t coming back. “I was gonna keep going west with Amelie. But life had other plans.”

Daniel was smiling now, albeit weakly. He motioned for Heartman to follow, and they walked farther up the river together, to a cairn on a grassy hill overlooking the city. The smog and clouds had cleared, revealing the whole breadth of the cityscape, which was backdropped against steep mountains that ran parallel to the horizon for miles on end. They sat on the hill and looked out at the city. The longer Heartman studied the cityscape, the more he began to recognize it. He had only seen it once before, during the expedition; all the rest were in photographs. But there was no mistaking the monumental spiral that jutted out near the city’s center, like a drill that had pierced through the earth.

“Is that...Middle Knot City?” Heartman asked. Daniel nodded gravely.  
“It is. Or it was,” he looked down. “I’m a porter, always have been. It was the family business. As soon I was old enough to make deliveries on my own, I joined Bridges and been with them ever since. Never thought of myself as the settling down type. I was on my way to deliver a package here, when I stood at this very spot, and I just knew...I was gonna stay here. For good. 

“I fell in love with this city the way I fell in love with her. At first sight.” Daniel reminisced. 

Heartman saw a bit of himself in him. He remembered how he was when he first fell in love with Miriam, how he knew love in theory, but not practice. He remembered the subtle, imperceptible way she would slip into his thoughts. He would be having tea, alone, and start to think about the kind she might like—or, if she took coffee instead, which she did, how many sugars to put in. Then he found himself thinking of her in the midst of his research, if she could answer a question on this and that, until the very thought of her began to distract him from his work. Try as he may, he never could figure out the exact moment he had fallen for his eventual wife. At some point, he realized his heart would skip a beat, not just because of his condition, but whenever he was around her. He felt it in his heart-shaped heart and knew he was in love—there was no other explanation.

“I met my fiancée here.” Daniel continued. “She was the one who greeted me at the terminal. I still remember,”—he did a sort of half snort, half laugh—“the first thing she ever said to me, when she saw the package. She said, ‘I don’t know what looks worse: you, or the package.’ I was a bit bruised up, you know. Falling, tripping...BTs. All occupational hazards. She took me straight to the hospital and didn’t leave until I was all patched up.”

Daniel’s face beamed with pride as he spoke. His smile never left as he turned to Heartman.

“Enough about me. You haven’t said much since you got here, Quietman.”  
“Heartman. As in,” he clutched his chest. “‘Heartwarming. Or heartache.”  
“No it’s not.” Daniel smirked, knowingly. He didn’t press him about his name. “You ever fallen for someone that hard?”  
“I have, once. It was a long time ago.” Heartman wanted to hold off on telling him, in case their conversation was cut short. He decided to go on, nonetheless. “We were on the same research team for Bridges. My expertise was natural history and the sciences—biological, mainly. Hers was biochemistry and art history. She wanted to be an art conservationist. But the Stranding, and the voidouts, stole that dream from her. There was little in the way of art to conserve. We lost thousands upon thousands of archives and historical artifacts every day. To MULES, voidouts. Time. 

“But interestingly enough, that didn’t dissuade her. She conserved what she could, treasured everything she found. She saw beauty in everything—even in death and destruction. I fell for her quite deeply, as you can imagine. I would...I would give anything to see her and my child again.”

Daniel put a consoling hand on his shoulder. “Are they still around?”  
"On the Beach, I suppose."  
“You’re looking for them," he murmured. “But you’re on the wrong side of town. The side of the living.”  
“I am already dead.” Heartman corrected. He absentmindedly stroked a blade of grass between his thumb and forefinger. “Even if I wasn’t, I haven’t felt alive since the day I lost them.”

Daniel got up from the grass, shoving his hands in his pockets. He produced a wedding ring from one, turning it over in his calloused palms. “I know what that’s like...and I can’t do anything about it. I don’t have a choice: I have to stay on this side. I can’t go back.”

“What about the place after this one? The afterlife?” Heartman offered. “Do you believe in one?”

“I don’t. But it doesn’t matter,” said Daniel, downcast. “Because she isn’t there.”

Heartman understood his reasoning. It made him question if he only believed in an afterlife because Miriam and Sarah might be there. He liked to think he had always believed in one, long before he lost them. But unlike Deadman, he didn’t consider himself a _Homo religiosus_ : his relationship with death was not at all spiritual, but rational. He sought to understand it, make sense of it. To see its potential links between the Stranding and the Beaches. To him, it was at once fascinating and frightening, to be so well-acquainted with death—every trip to the Beach revealing another facet of her face that few would ever see. 

“I think you have a choice, Heartman,” Daniel said, at last. “It might not feel that way sometimes, but you do. You can choose to stay here, in the world of the dead...or you can choose to live your life.” The hope returned to his eyes, and he was smiling again. 

A life filled with interruptions. A life of shortened conversations and brief sparks of joy. A life of cyclical, mind-numbing repetition—death, rebirth, life, repeat. A life of missed milestones and moments passed. Of what-ifs and what-could’ve-beens. This was his life. This was how he “lived.”

Could he truly call it living, when it was only twenty-one minutes at a time? 

“It’s funny, though.” Heartman thought aloud. He wasn’t smiling or laughing, and tears stung his eyes. “It’s easier to die than it is to live.”


	14. Målingen and Lockne

Night had fallen over their shelter. The chiralium sky obscured the stars, and all the sisters saw was darkness, like a black hole that had swallowed up their entire hemisphere. They laid on the grass and stargazed anyway, like they did almost every night since they were five. 

They were twenty now. The Stranding left the world starless and irrevocably fractured, but their bond remained. 

“I was reading an old NASA study the other day. Mama and papa would’ve loved it.” Målingen began, her hair spilling onto the grass as if it was floating in water. She kept threading her fingers through it. “It’s about these identical twins, the first twin astronauts for NASA.[1] One of them spent a year in space, the other stayed here on Earth. Then they compared their genes. It’s pretty cool.” 

Lockne leaned on her elbow so she could face her. “Think they fought over who got to go to space?”

Målingen thought quietly for a bit, then smirked. She placed a finger above her lips, a mock stache, then spoke in a deeper voice. “‘Hey, wanna go to space?”—she dropped the stache—“Sure. You cool if I stay here?’ Not all siblings fight all the time. We get along most of the time.”

“I guess you’re right.” Lockne laid back down on the grass, sighing. “I always assume the worst in people, don’t I?”

“Yeah. A little bit.”

Lockne stared up at the sky, painting the stars in her mind. Some newly birthed, brilliant and blue, others red giants in their dying days. Stars came in pairs, and each speck in her sky had a companion. A twin. “If that were us, who gets to go where?”

“It couldn’t be us.” Målingen sat up and tied her hair into a ponytail right away. “I wouldn’t leave you all alone.”

Lockne smiled at her, touched by the sentiment. Then she turned and shoved her sister’s arm playfully. Målingen feigned being hurt.

“You _so_ would! You would never pass up an opportunity to go to space,” Lockne teased. They both started to laugh, knowing it was partly true. “I bet you won’t even tell me when you’re leaving.” 

Målingen smiled at their imagined sky. She stared into the darkness for a while in quiet contemplation. The longer she stared at the night sky, at the grey clouds that hid nothing, the less vivid the picture became—until there was nothing. She couldn’t tell the sky and the back of her eyelids apart. They were alone in this world: two lost stars in a sea of darkness.

“Do you feel this way sometimes?” 

“Yes.” Lockne answered. 

Målingen reached for her sister’s hand and held it tightly. “Maybe someday we’ll see the stars again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] [Twins Study - NASA](https://www.nasa.gov/twins-study/about)


	15. Mama

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The in-text superscript links lead to the WikiArt image of the painting as a visual aid. The end of chapter citations also feature the links, as well as a description for accessibility.

Mama studied each of the paintings in earnest. There was a painting of a red, heart-shaped object partially draped in a gold veil[1](https://www.wikiart.org/en/salvador-dali/the-veiled-heart), which made her smile. One of an empty beach with melted clocks[2](https://www.wikiart.org/en/salvador-dali/the-persistence-of-memory-1931); another of two ruined towers, made to look like scrawny figures looking out at sea[3](https://www.wikiart.org/en/salvador-dali/archeological-reminiscence-millet-s-angelus). A peculiar one that showed a naked woman, hovering over a sheet of ice or white sand, about to be eaten by two tigers[4](https://www.wikiart.org/en/salvador-dali/dream-caused-by-the-flight-of-a-bee-around-a-pomegranate-one-second-before-awakening). The last painting she came across brought her to a standstill. 

The central figure was a saint with steepled fingers, head tilted down as if in prayer[5](https://www.wikiart.org/en/salvador-dali/the-first-study-for-the-madonna-of-port-lligat). She seemed to be floating on a disassembled stone archway, its hard edges betraying the softness of the rest of the painting. The woman’s limbs weren’t painted in all the way, making the woman appear ethereal; at once complete and incomplete. Her arms and torso were missing, and in the empty space where her womb should be was a small floating baby, a crucifix in its tiny hand. It was a religious painting: the artist’s vision of the Madonna in a serene, blue skied beach. Mama studied the Madonna’s smiling face. Before long, her own hands formed a steeple where her heart was. She saw a floating Ellie in her empty womb, her small hand clutching her favorite pinwheel; felt the seasalt wind nipping at her skin, the sun kissing her bare neck. Behind her, the endless blue of the sea beckoned her to come near, to let the soft water seep between her bare toes. 

Her eyes fluttered shut, and tears began to roll down her face. 

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Heartman’s voice, though soft, caught her off guard. “Don’t worry, I just got back. I’m sorry if I startled you.” 

He saw the tears in her eyes. His lips parted but no words came out. She could never tell what ran through his mind; there was always a part of him that she knew he kept to himself. Mama wanted to do the same with him, to put up a barrier between her and anyone who got too close. But at present, her emotions yearned to burst out of her, like a breath held in for too long.

“The Madonna of Port Lligat. One of two studies. This was the first.” Heartman explained. “It’s of his wife, Gala. She was his muse.”

She looked between the mother and her baby. “Was that their child?”

Heartman looked down and fell silent for a moment. Then quietly, said, “They never had one. She had a child named Cécile from a previous marriage, whom she abandoned after marrying Dali. The child was only eleven at the time.”6

Mama turned the revelation over in her mind. She gave the Madonna another look and thought she would feel contempt. Anger. Instead, she pitied her. She might’ve even sympathized with her; a thought that shook her to the core and made her turn away from the painting in shame. 

“Heartman,” Mama began. It was the breath that she had been holding onto, the emotional, cathartic exhale. “There’s something I need to tell you. Just—promise you won’t think less of me?”  
He placed a hand on his chest. “Cross my heart.”  
“I never wanted to be a mother.” She began, haltingly. “I just did it to make someone else happy...to make Lockne happy. She isn’t even mine.” Her voice broke at the words. Mama looked to Ellie and lowered her voice to a whisper.  
“I love Ellie. I really do. It’s just,“ she turned so that she was speaking into his chest. “I’m tired. I’m _so_ tired. Everyday, every night. Everyone says that becoming a parent is one of the most rewarding things in the world. Some people spend their whole lives trying to become a mother or a father, to have a child to call their own. My sister was one of them. But she couldn’t have children.  
“She told me once that mothers bring mankind’s greatest gifts into this world: life. And I couldn’t even do that. I couldn’t do the one thing my sister asked me...to be a good mother to her child.

“The only thing motherhood has brought me is pain. I never wanted to be a mama. I just wanted to live my life. To be free. I thought I could do this alone, but I can’t. _I can’t._ ”

Heartman didn’t look away from her, tears rolling down his cheeks. She didn’t know if they were already there or had formed just then—but it didn’t matter. What mattered was how he had closed the space between them, so she could count the sunspots on his forehead, how he hovered his hands over her back in an attempt at a hug.

“Yet despite all the pain you’ve endured, here you are,” Heartman reassured. “You are, without exception, a true example of a good mother, bearing life’s pain so that your child does not have to. If that isn’t parenthood…then I haven’t the faintest idea what is.”

Mama looked up and gave him a sincere smile. She knew that he had suffered a lifetime’s worth of pain and loss. As reserved as he was, she felt it in every word and glance they exchanged, every small smile that he gave her. Her pain might’ve been different from his, but that didn’t make his any less valid.

She felt undeserving of his words. Long after he said them, her eyes lingered on his, searching for a flicker of doubt; some confirmation that the words were out of sympathy. But he meant them. Eventually, he took off his glasses. She had never seen him without them. It took a moment to process his new face. He looked fresh-faced and at ease this way, as if he was seeing the world for the first time.

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my seemingly endless days wandering the Beach,” Heartman said. “It is that everything is ephemeral. If life is temporary—so is death. Joy and pain. Loneliness and...togetherness. All we could do, I suppose, is take things one day at a time. For me, one Beach and twenty-one minute interval at a time.”

He smiled at her with something close to hope in his eyes. “Where were we?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1](https://www.wikiart.org/en/salvador-dali/the-veiled-heart) "The Veiled Heart" by Salvador Dalí (1932)
>
>> _The Veiled Heart_ features a red heart-shaped object partially covered in a golden veil, which is long enough to drape over the black floor. The object and veil casts a dark shadow against a blue-green background.
> 
> [2](https://www.wikiart.org/en/salvador-dali/the-persistence-of-memory-1931) "The Persistence of Memory" by Salvador Dalí (1931)
>
>> The top half of the painting, _The Persistence of Memory,_ features a light blue ocean, a blue and orange sky, and a distant mountain that stretches to the right side of the painting. There are three melting clocks, and one unmelted clock. One clock is draped across a branch on the left side of the painting. The branch sits on top of a brown flat surface, where another gold-rimmed clock is melting. The bottom left corner shows an unmelted orange clock covered in ants. In the middle of the painting is a white object with large eyelashes; draped in the middle of the object is the third melted clock.
> 
> [3](https://www.wikiart.org/en/salvador-dali/archeological-reminiscence-millet-s-angelus) "Archaeological Reminiscence of Millet's Angelus" by Salvador Dalí (1934)
>
>> _Archeological Reminiscence Millet's Angelus_ features a cloudy sky, with two thin figures that have a brick-like texture. In the middle of the clouds, a bit of sunlight is breaking through and shining on the two figures. The left figure has four small rectangular openings on the body. The right figure has a small archway next to the lower half of the body. In the middle, extremely small compared to the two central figures, is a small child holding the hand of an adult. The adult is pointing at the larger figure on the right. Another child and adult, also extremely small, can be seen near the larger right figure.
> 
> [4](https://www.wikiart.org/en/salvador-dali/dream-caused-by-the-flight-of-a-bee-around-a-pomegranate-one-second-before-awakening) "Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second before Awakening" by Salvador Dalí (1944)
>
>> _Flight of a Bee_ shows a nude woman floating above a flat, white island surrounded by blue water. On the left side is a large pomegranate with an orange fish coming out of its center. The fish has a wide open mouth, from which two tigers are leaping towards the nude woman. The tip of a bayonet is pointed at the nude woman's folded arm. Near the bottom of the painting, floating beside the flat white island, is a smaller pomegranate with a bee hovering near it. In the background, there is a white elephant with long, thin legs planted in the water.
> 
>   
> 
> 
> [5](https://www.wikiart.org/en/salvador-dali/the-first-study-for-the-madonna-of-port-lligat) "The First Study for the Madonna of Port Lligat" by Salvador Dalí (1949)
>
>> _The Madonna of Port Lligat_ Features a woman and a baby floating inside a rectangular stone archway. The woman's palms are facing out, the tips of the fingers together. Her eyes are closed. She is wearing robes, and part of her arms and body is not visible, revealing a blue sky and water behind her. On the left side of the painting, two fish are present. At the bottom of the painting is a platform with a piece of square cloth on the left side, and two lemons on the right side.
> 
> 6 Poirier, A. (2014, April 12). [Watching boxing with Picasso and a ménage-à-trois at home: my life with the surrealist elite](https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/apr/13/cecile-eluard-childhood-pablo-picasso)
> 
> [Mothers - Daughter](https://open.spotify.com/track/7nXh7dFZxh8ZXrP2ejH1nP)


	16. Lockne

Lockne had fallen asleep with her head on Aaron’s desk. She bolted upright when her cuff link blinked bright red—an emergency call. 

“Boss, we need you.” Aaron’s holo stood by the desk, his face covered in black streaks. Tar. She strained to hear him over the background noise. “They evacuated sector four-six-eight. The containment team couldn’t keep the tar from spreading. It’s looking pretty bad. Can you—” 

“Aaron? Aaron! Aaron—shit.” Lockne threw open all the drawers on his desk, rummaging for something, anything that could be of use. The first few drawers were filled with paperwork and folders and useless office supplies. She tried to tug open the bottom left side drawer. Locked. Then the right, which she yanked so hard it almost came loose. A thick woven rope laid inside, coiled in a near perfect circle and never used. Lockne held it in her shaky hands. 

After she got her bearings, she headed for Sector 468.

Lockne drove through the residential area cautiously, her low beams illuminating the rain slicked street. Sector 468 had miles of grey monolithic buildings, distinguishable only by holoplaques that bore a house number and last name. Occasionally, she came across holograms of waving tenants, which disappeared as soon as she drove past. 

She followed the sound of sirens, blaring at intervals throughout the empty street. Up ahead, a closed off section of the road crawled with guards, civilians, and porters. Lockne spotted Aaron by the reflective tape on his Bridges uniform. He was holding someone back. She stepped out of the truck and ran up to him.

“...Stay here, miss! It’s not safe. The containment team is still searching for her.”  
“Find my daughter, please! Don’t leave her!” She screamed. “Do something!”  
Aaron struggled to maintain his balance as he held the distraught mother back. “Miss, please, the team is—oh, Lockne! Thank god.”  
The mother freed herself from Aaron and clung onto Lockne instead. She had an iron grip, and it felt as if two cuff links were suddenly clamped onto her wrists. “You have to save my daughter, please! Please. I’m begging you.”  
“I will,” Lockne assured her, “but I need you to stay back. It’s not safe for you to be this close to the tar.” The woman nodded frantically, her initial panic subsiding. Lockne motioned for some nearby guards to start escorting her back.

“Thank you! Oh, thank you!” She held onto Lockne’s hand a bit before letting go. When Lockne opened her palm, there was a bracelet in it, small enough to fit inside her hand. Its tiny charms spelled out ‘Madeline.' Lockne placed it in her pocket, then surveyed the area behind the barricade. The entire main road was covered in tar, glistening like obsidian under the searchlight of rescue drones. Several feet away, a group of Bridges members congregated outside a house.

“Lockne, the tar is knee deep,” Aaron explained. “The team we sent in there couldn't get that far. They’ve been rotating them out. The girl is in there...she’s scared.”  
“Have they sighted any BTs?”  
“No,” Aaron rubbed his eyelids, “but we recovered a black box from one of the drones. They told me it looked like a black blob, like a...giant floating tar bubble. It exploded and took out the camera. No BT. Unless…” he shook his head, dismissing the rest of the thought.  
“She doesn’t have much time,” Lockne was headed for the barricade when she felt Aaron’s hand on her wrist.  
“I’m coming with you.”  
“You don’t have DOOMS, the tar is—”  
“The second containment team is bringing in antimatter grenades,” he interrupted, jogging ahead of her. “It won’t stop the flow completely, but it should buy us enough time ‘till Sam gets here.”

Lockne fell into step beside Aaron. She didn’t want to let on that she was out of her depth, embarking on a mission like this. It had been two years since she saw a tar pit of this scale. Maybe it was maternal instinct, adrenaline, or both, but her body acted before her mind did. Madeline needed her. But— 

Aaron waited for her further up the road. She had stopped midway. Pinned in place. Fear seeped into her veins and lungs like tar, thick and paralyzing. She was scared.

She took a breath and kept going. 

By the time they reached the apartment, the tar was up to their knees. Lockne heard crying from deeper inside, and as she drew closer the family’s holo greeting appeared: Madeline and her mother smiled and waved at her before disappearing. The child couldn’t have been more than six or seven. 

Aaron trudged to a stop behind her. “They can only send two people in at a time,” he said, watching the holo play out. “The last thing we need is a voidout.”

Lockne unhooked the rope from her waist, handing one end to him. She took his gloved hands and held them, gaze steely and determined. “I need you to stay here, so I can find my way back," she pushed away the thought that the tar might swallow her up. That she might not come back. “No matter what, don’t let go.”

She saw how torn he was, his beady eyes flitting between her and the rope. It was only when they heard the girl’s cries again did he nod assuredly, confident in her decision. 

“You got it, boss.”

The tar felt heavy against her knees. Each step threatened to pull her under. She threaded carefully, her heart hammering against her chest as she fought for control over her fight-or-flight. One wrong step could be her last. What was once Madeline’s home had turned into a flood’s aftermath: every piece of furniture black and deformed, floating aimlessly before being absorbed by the tar. Lockne saw some sort of drawer curdle then disappear before her eyes, and she clenched the rope tighter, uncoiling it as she trudged along.

Madeline’s cries led her down a small flight of stairs, into the garage. There were no vehicles around, not even a tar-coated object resembling one; just a dark space with flickering lights and peeling walls that bled black. Lockne saw Madeline cowering in the corner, on top of a crate. Tar undulated all around her. She was covered in it from the chest down. 

“It’s okay,” Lockne soothed. “I’m here to help you.”

Madeline drew her black knees closer to her chest and coughed. She stared at Lockne with big rheumy eyes. 

“Målingen—“ Her voice caught in her throat. “Madeline. Your name is Madeline.”

The girl nodded shyly, then hid her face behind her knees.

“I am Lockne,” with her free hand, she produced the bracelet from her pocket. “Your mother is waiting for you outside. I’ll take you to her.” Lockne slowly made her away across the room and came to a stop at the crate. She held the rope out to Madeline, who stared at it wearily before shaking her head. 

“I—I can’t,” Madeline muttered, her voice soft and quivering. “I can’t. I’m scared.”

Lockne stared at the rope in her hands. It was shaking, and she couldn’t tell if it was due to the tension being exerted on it, or Aaron, or her hands, which had turned black. After a beat, she took a breath and said, “I am too. That’s why I have this,” she held up the rope. “So we can find our way back.”

“You’re scared?” Madeline asked, as if it was a personal question.  
Against all odds, Lockne smiled. “Very. But sometimes...you have to be brave. Not only for yourself, but for the people around you. For your mama.”

The child slowly blinked at her, then moved to the edge of the crate, into the halflight where Lockne could see her eyes. A brilliant blue, just like Målingen’s. 

“Can you carry me?” Madeline asked, impatiently. Lockne scooped Madeline into her arms and guided the end of the rope into her small hands.

“Hold onto this,” she instructed, “so we won’t drift apart.”


	17. Målingen and Lockne

Dusk settled over the ruins of Middle Knot, painting the sky in a blaze of gold and red. Målingen drove her Bridges truck through rough terrain. She saw the voidout scarred hillsides in the distance, mountains meant to go further but interrupted by long stretches of sky. Up ahead, a bridge stood over a river that threaded through grasslands.

Målingen spotted Lockne on a hilltop overlooking the ruins. The outer limits had been raised by the blast, turning the former city into a crater. The timeworn infrastructure of buildings stood like shipwrecks, stripped down to their rusted metal frames. BTs wandered the place in droves. Målingen ventured to think they were the souls of old inhabitants, unwilling to leave their homes behind.

Målingen slowed to a stop at the base of the hill. Lockne knew she was being followed; their connection made it so they always knew where the other was. 

“I told you I wanted to be alone,” she said, once Målingen was within earshot. A pile of pebbles were nestled in her crossed arms, swathed in her open coat like a newborn. She gently poured them onto a spot by the sandalweed, where a cairn began to take shape. “You never listen,” she muttered.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Målingen picked up a pebble and handed it to her. “There’s BTs everywhere. I wasn’t gonna let you go alone.”

Lockne stared at the pebble in her sister’s hand. Reluctantly, she added it to the cairn. “This is where he proposed to me,” she confessed. “He told me to cover my eyes. I peeked—he knew I would. He forgot to get flowers, so he picked some sandalweed and handed them to me.”

“ _Sandalweed?_ ” Målingen couldn’t help but smile at the mental image. She stared at the same spot as Lockne, picturing the red-headed man with a ringbox and a giant stalk of sandalweed. They finished the rest of the cairn in comfortable silence. Afterward, they looked out at the city like it was a planet they had left behind. 

“When we first joined Bridges,” Målingen began, laying on the grass and resting her hands on her stomach. “There was an option to have our eggs frozen...which I couldn’t use anyway. But you did. Daniel was probably given the same option, but with his sperm.”

“He did,” Lockne laid beside her sister. Eventually, she turned to her. “I thought you hated children.”  
“You make me sound like a crabby old lady,” Målingen belly laughed. “Remember Saggy Sally?”  
“Ugh—no. Don’t remind me,” she shivered in disgust.  
“I don’t _hate_ children. I just don’t want any of my own. Even if I could. Two completely different things.”  
Lockne kept her gaze on the starless sky. “Why not?”  


Målingen caught a glimpse of her sister’s neck. There were no rope marks from the week before. No thick red band that wrapped around her pale, delicate skin. Their bodies didn’t necrotize; their skin bore no scars.

Physical ones, at least.

“I don’t want any,” Målingen finally answered. “It’s not like I’ve met someone anyway. It doesn’t matter.”

She looked at the cairn they had built together. There were more of these all around the ruins, each one erected by a person who lost someone that day. It wasn’t just Daniel she lost; Lockne, too. She hasn’t been the same ever since. 

“You know I would do anything for you, sis,” Målingen whispered. “I love you. Forever and always.”

Lockne smiled tightly. She said nothing as her face contorted, on the verge of tears. Without speaking a word, they came to a decision. And once the sisters decided on something, they followed through—no matter what.

“Let’s have a baby,” Målingen said, smiling through their tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In a previous version, I wrote that Lockne had a scar around her neck. I realized that if their bodies do not necrotize, as mentioned in canon, their skin would likely not scar. This has been edited to reflect that.


	18. Lockne

“I’m sleepy,” Madeline murmured, her hand languidly clutching the rope while Lockne held up the rest.

“We’re almost there.” 

The child stared at the bare walls, her big eyes searching for pictures that were no longer there. 

When Lockne rounded the corner, the rope grew taut in her grasp. Still one moment, limp the next. Her hairs stood on end, and Madeline, sensing her unease, let go of her part of the rope. She hugged Lockne tighter. 

Aaron must’ve let go. Lockne felt betrayal coursing through her veins as she waded on, holding Madeline closer to her chest. She followed the rope with growing apprehension, not only in Aaron but in everything: in the strange, eerie stillness of the tar; in how easily things fell apart. The rope slithered on the ground behind them like a snake, its woven belly convulsing in her grasp.

Lockne comforted herself with the thought that finding a vacant home for Madeline was a relatively simple task; she would see to it herself that the city's relocation services assisted her right away. But it wouldn’t bring back what they once had. The home they wandered now, all the belongings and memories it once held,—lost. For good. Could she have foreseen any of this? Was there more she could've done? Her thoughts raced as she trudged back to the entrance.

There was no sign of Aaron; his end of the rope was partly submerged in the tar. When Lockne neared it, fear struck her heart. She let go of the rope. Outside, the streetlights and artificial blues of cuff links shone on Lockne’s tired face. The tar was now only ankle deep, and she let out a shaky breath. Members of the containment team approached, guiding them back to the barricade. Hands reached for Madeline, for her; tar covered hands that made her grow still. Lockne held onto the child and didn’t let go. 

“Mama!” 

Madeline freed herself from Lockne and ran into her mother’s open arms. The mother cupped her daughter’s small face in her hands, wiping away streaks of tar and tears. She had never seen the child smile until now. Lockne found herself smiling as she tried to make out their words.

As she watched them, a childhood conversation played out in her mind. 

_“Oh, my beautiful girls,” her mother took a face in each hand, Lockne in her left, Målingen in her right. She knelt down so the twins didn’t have to strain to look up at her. “You were playing around the craters again, weren’t you?”_

_“No,” said the sisters in unison._

_Their mother smiled at the floor and laughed softly, looking at them from under her eyebrows. Even in the halflight, her heterochromic eyes burned as bright as new stars. Their father snuck up behind them and started messing up their hair. Dust and dandruff flew everywhere._

_“Never been to the craters?” the twins laughed so hard they couldn’t keep their eyes open. “But look at all this spacedust!”_

“Lockne!” A small voice took her back to the present. Madeline. 

Their eyes met, and for an instant, she saw her own face staring back at her, young, innocent, happy. Her hands acted before her mind did, and she opened her arms and embraced her.

“...Thank you,” Madeline murmured into her hair. Lockne took out her bracelet and held it out for her, but the child didn’t take it. “You can keep it. I can make another one.”

The mother called her back before Lockne could say anything. Madeline grabbed her mother’s hand, and both of them waved goodbye as the medics led them away. As she waved back, she felt someone come to a stop beside her.

“Aaron—!” Lockne was so relieved that she hugged him too. A brief, spur-of-the-moment hug that made Aaron’s body tense up against hers. She stepped away and breathed, “I thought you left me.” 

“S-Something came up from under me. I, uh, lost my footing. And the rope. Sorry.” 

Aaron stepped back until they were an arm’s length apart. It seemed like he had more to say; she could tell by the way his eyes never lingered on hers for very long. Then he knitted his eyebrows and added an afterthought.

“Wait—you thought I left you?” Aaron wore a smile of disbelief. “Sheesh, boss. Do you always assume the worst?”

“Yeah,” Lockne admitted shyly. “A little bit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Heart Hope - Oh Wonder](https://open.spotify.com/track/2Czp64BykWyWfIssRXQZvT)


	19. Heartman

Heartman closed his eyes and sank deeper into his hot spring. He allocated strictly five minutes of ‘relaxation’ time for himself, something he did to avoid burn out—and losing his mind. He closed his eyes and let the steam soften his tired bones. His cuff link, set to ring after five minutes, was waterproof; the same couldn’t be said about his defibrillator, which sat on a Hinoki wooden stool away from the water, still within reach. Beside it was a decorative pyramid of buckets made of the same wood as the stool: _Chamaecyparis obtusa_ , or Hinoki cypress1 was a hardy building material used in Pre-Stranding temples in Japan. Extremely-timefall resistant, it wouldn't come as a surprise if it outlasted him and his entire lab.

He surrounded himself with things he knew would outlive him. It was the nature of his research; the dilemma that plagued historians that came before him. They uncovered the past to understand the present. To better the future. But in time, all his research—his very being—would be history, too. Currently, he was a footprint in the snow, freshly made, still visible. But in time...

He meant what he said to Mama. Everything was ephemeral. It was the not inevitable disappearance of his footprint that disheartened him. It was what he felt after every footprint made, every supposed breakthrough in the Stranding. That no matter how remarkable the discovery, there was a great emptiness that lingered in his heart. 

What was the use of all his knowledge if there was no one to share it with?

Heartman turned this over in his mind. He thought of Mama and Lockne, of the bond they shared. Admittedly, he knew little of the science behind their DOOMS. From what Mama had told him, she had the ability to feel what her sister felt, even if there were oceans between them. It was poetic, almost spiritual, that distance was irrelevant—they were always connected.

He longed for such a connection. He felt something close to it once before, with Miriam, and feared it was lost forever. A connection like theirs, deep and unspoken and intimate, was once in a lifetime. Beyond science and reason. He may very well never feel it again.

When Mama had confided in him, he couldn’t bring himself to understand the disconnect she felt with her child. With motherhood. He wasn’t at liberty to give such judgement or criticism, that much he knew. In truth, he loved fatherhood. All the fear and apprehension he had felt over planning for a child, the dread of passing on his accursed condition, the anxiety of missing out on Sarah’s birth—all of it had been worth it the moment he laid eyes on her for the first time. His wife had brought life into his death-stricken world. He loved little Sarah with his whole heart-shaped-heart, and wanted nothing more than to have watched her grow up, even if it was for twenty-one minutes at a time. 

Mama had her whole lifetime to spend with her daughter. She had a sister who cared for her, and though she felt alone, she wasn’t truly—her sister would never abandon her. He had no one. Even when he wasn’t alone, a part of him always felt like a burden: to his wife, to Sarah, to anyone who had the misfortune of getting too close to him.

Heartman opened his eyes, then scrubbed his hands down his face. He looked at his reflection in the water, barely recognizing the man staring back at him, with his lightless eyes and bare chest. He hadn’t seen himself in months. Forgotten about the white patches his defib pads left on his skin, the patchwork way his hair grew around them. He placed a hand on his chest, fingers slowly tracing his sternotomy scar: a permanent reminder of his loss etched onto his skin forever. He pressed against the raised skin, closed his eyes, let his memories overtake him.

#### •••

_Three years ago._

Heartman returned from the Beach to find his doctor waiting for him. The doctor insisted on visiting him in-person this time, and he could only assume the worst.

The doctor was an older man with hair as white as his button up. His bushy eyebrows, untouched by age, were permanently knitted in worry. They exchanged the usual doctor-patient pleasantries. Heartman knew he worked with his wife, a medical device engineer, and always spoke highly of her. Ever since the voidout, he hardly brought her up in conversation.

Heartman sat on his divan, facing the monitors. It displayed his most recent lab results: his ECG strip, bloodwork, spirometry, a detailed review of systems, his seemingly endless list of medications and so on. He inspected the data and, frankly, didn’t understand it all. But this did not deter him from trying to understand his heart.

“Your lab results came back. I spoke with your technician as well,” the doctor began, sitting at the foot of his divan. “I’m afraid I have some bad news. Your heart is getting worse, despite the new valves we’ve placed.”

“I suspected as much,” was all Heartman said as he read the monitors. He had gathered some medical knowledge on his condition, but not to the extent his doctor had. He knew better than to hope for a miracle. Climbing a flight of stairs left him winded; he had twenty different medications to take, he hasn’t slept in days and whenever he tried to his mind would guilt-shame-fault him for trying to sleep when his family was out there waiting for him on the Beach all because he had asked them to come back to grab his damned things if he had kept quiet they would be at the hospital with him that day and still be— 

“You are dying, James.” The doctor said, plainly. “I’m sorry, but there’s not much we can do.” 

He searched the doctor’s eyes, knew he would find sympathy. And he did, in leagues, but he expected more. He expected the sorrow of an old friend saying goodbye, tears rolling down his eyes and hands shaking and lip quivering. He did not expect such clinical formality from his doctor of nearly seven years, despite knowing it was customary—perhaps obligatory—to deliver bad news in that way; did not expect to be treated like any other patient of his, even though he was. Heartman couldn’t fault the doctor, and it was this inability to express his frustration, his anger, his sorrow, that made him sob into his own hands uncontrollably. 

The words were the final nail on the coffin he had been building himself for years. He always knew that, in time, his condition would render his heart non-functional. He knew that each time he woke up on a Beach, there was a chance he wouldn’t come back. He had always known these things, yet somehow his body was still shocked by the revelation. His _ha_ was a dying vessel, but his _ka_ was very much alive. Why, then, was his physical body saddened by all this? 

“I—I’m already—” Heartman wiped tears from his face, then cleared his throat. “I always come back, how is this any different?”

“Your cardiac muscle tissue is degrading faster than we initially thought. At this rate, your cardiac conduction system2, which is responsible for making your heart contract, will reach a critical point when it won’t work correctly. Your heart will not be able to contract properly. When it stops beating, as it does when you go to the Beach, it might not start again. Even after defibrillation.” 

“How long do I have?”

“Your case is...unique,” the doctor paused, choosing his next words carefully. “All I can say is—you might not have much time. After a year or so, your sinoatrial node—the natural pacemaker of your heart3—will gradually weaken. Your ECG is already showing signs of this. As you’ve probably gathered, these areas here,”—he pointed to a nearly straight line on his strip—”are alternating slow and fast heart rhythms4. The medication we have you on should help control your symptoms. But there is no panacea for myocardial cordiformia.

“...You’ve informed us that you do not want an implanted pacemaker. Is that correct?”

“I don’t want to cause another voidout,” Heartman answered quickly. “If I am to undergo any other major procedure, it might as well be for a new heart. No use in beating a dead—dying—horse.”

“I understand. We haven’t found a suitable donor for you yet.” 

“Pity,” Heartman muttered under his breath.

“We’re fighting to maintain the organ transplant program. The list dwindles every day. On top of that, we’ve met some resistance from the headquarters’ governing body. 

“Perhaps the chiral network will change that,” the doctor said, hope in his voice. “I will continue to monitor your condition. As difficult as this may be...continue to do things that are meaningful to you, that bring you joy,” he glanced around at his books and nodded appreciatively. “Enjoy the connections you have with the people around you.”

“I...I don’t have anyone,” he murmured. “I am all alone.”

“What about your colleagues? Fragile, Lockne, Mama, the Director? Our dear physician over at the mortuary?” he said, referring to Deadman. “And you know me and my better half and are always a holocall away.”

The doctor placed his hand on top of his. 

“James. You are surrounded by people who care about you. Who would be more than willing to lend you a helping hand,” his eyes were warm, kind. “You must simply let them. As you did with me.”

He nodded slowly, keeping his gaze on the doctor’s hand. They sat in near silence for what felt like eons. Heartman let his tears fall freely. As the death knell of his AED rang,—ten, five, then three minutes—his doctor remained with him. At one minute, he began the onerous process of preparing for his death. He closed his eyes. Counted his last few breaths. Waited.

He opened his eyes briefly. His doctor was still by his side, a small smile on his venerable face. 

Heartman smiled back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 Tsuchihashi, R. (2016, December 16). [Hinoki: A Revered Conifer.](https://www.seattlejapanesegarden.org/blog/2016/12/16/hinoki)  
> 2 [Cardiac conduction system](https://medlineplus.gov/ency/anatomyvideos/000021.htm) \- Health Video: MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia.  
> 3 Ibid.  
> 4 Burns, E. (2019, March 16). [Sinus Node Dysfunction (Sick Sinus Syndrome)](https://litfl.com/sinus-node-dysfunction-sick-sinus-syndrome/)
> 
> ( _Disclaimer:_ Links here should not be used in place of professional medical advice.)


	20. Lockne

Lockne returned to Aaron’s office. It was as she left it yesterday, with office supplies, paperwork, and holotapes strewn all over the floor, as if the room had been drained of tar too. 

She gathered all the papers and placed them in neat piles on his desk. Only Aaron could have this much paperwork; from a glance, most of them appeared to be in his own cursive hand. Why doesn’t he digitize these, Lockne thought. It was tedious work, straightening and filling out all this paperwork, having to manually search for it rather than simply running a search on her cuff link.

“Got something against good old-fashioned paper, boss?” Aaron knocked on the doorway then sauntered in. She hid the startled look on her face by tugging her coat collar higher, keeping her eyes on the floor. Had she said all that out loud?

He helped her clean up the rest of his stuff, waving away Lockne’s attempts at an apology. “Thought I recognized that rope,” Aaron said, shutting the now empty drawer she had found it in. “I knew it’d come in handy someday.” 

“I was going to clean this up right away, but the relocations took longer than I expected,” she explained. “They wanted me to stay for an interview, but I told them I had a meeting.”

“And did you?”

“Nope,” Lockne held up a stash of books, pointing it at two different places back and forth. Aaron pointed his chin at a bookshelf behind her, and she started shelving them there. “I don’t like interviews. Alphabetical by last name?” she asked, craning her head to check the spines.

Aaron hummed in agreement. He was being oddly quiet. She eyed him from across the room and noticed his headset was around his neck, which meant it was his day off. Or he couldn’t be bothered to put it back on. 

He must’ve felt her staring at him, because he looked up from where he was crouched then averted his gaze quickly. Finally, he sighed loud enough to get her attention.

“Lockne,” he said. It caught her off guard. He only used her name for business matters. “There’s something I gotta show you.” 

She heard a clink, then an old metal drawer creak open. 

“After yesterday...I can’t let another day go by without telling you,” he produced another rusted key from the drawer. She hadn’t seen one in ages, since most things were unlocked with a keycard, passcode, or cuff link. Aaron walked over to the bookshelf and pulled out a worn leatherbound book. As Lockne stared at it, he slid the key into the now vacant space on the wood. The bookshelf shifted open slightly, and dust clouds rose and settled all around them. 

With Lockne’s help, Aaron swung the shelf open, revealing a small closet. Light flooded through the opening and illuminated a strip of darkness; the rusted corner piece of a metal box. Once the shelf was wide open, she took a closer look inside. Her heart dropped to her stomach.

Six boxes total. All without damage sensor tape. Lockne approached the topmost package, a small metal box no bigger than a newborn. She lifted the lid. Inside, two pairs of pink baby shoes with socks to match, and two rompers: one with a blue and white whale pattern, the other with stripes made to look like waves. 

“Elorza—” Lockne cried. She felt Aaron steady her as she crumpled to the floor, the box still in her shaky hands. They sat down together, her face buried in his shoulder as he rubbed circles on her back. 

“You had a baby,” Aaron murmured, his voice rife with melancholy. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…”

Lockne shook her head and smiled weakly. She folded the baby clothes before placing them back in the box. “My sister, Målingen. She carried my baby for me.

“I haven’t seen either of them in over a year. The last time I saw her, she was in her third trimester. We had a fight,” she trailed off, closing the box. Aaron’s hands lingered on her arms as they stood up together. Once they were on their feet, she put the box back where she found it. Her hand traced over the rough surfaces of the other packages. The holotape box was the oldest one there, its clasp worn from years of use.

Lockne carefully slid the box out and flipped it open. She still remembered which holo was which, and it didn’t take long for her to find Målingen’s last message. 

Aaron was in the room with her. If she played it, he would know everything there was to know about her. Lockne looked back at him, and there was a softness in his eyes that comforted her. She recognized it. He wore it whenever they passed each other in a hallway, as they walked in opposite directions, neither of them willing to break the other’s gaze. It didn’t make her heart flutter like Daniel’s did, but it certainly made her feel like she belonged. 

Lockne synced the memory chip with her cuff link and played the message. Målingen appeared before them, her round belly protruding from her white maternity dress.

“ _Hey Lock. You’re right—something has been bothering me. You probably thought it was my hormones or something. But it’s not,_ ” Målingen rested a hand on top of her belly. There was a small stain near the collar of her dress; chocolate ice cream. Lockne smiled at the sight of it.

“ _I hope...after this. I hope you won’t think less of me. Even if you do, I’ll understand,_ ” she smiled at no one. Then her holo stared right at Lockne. Aaron was likely seeing all this for the first time and looked between the two. 

“ _I know I promised we would raise Ellie—Elorza, together. But the more time I spend with her, I realize…_

_“I’m so attached to her. I_ love _her. She’s not even mine. I just...I feel like I shouldn’t be doing this. I can’t. I can’t co-parent with you anymore. Because...I’m not her mama. You are._ ” 

Målingen smiled at her belly, tears rolling down her flushed face. Lockne had played the message countless times, trying to make sense of the sadness in her sister’s blue eyes. For once, she didn’t fully know what ran through the other’s mind. 

“ _I’m not gonna leave you high and dry, but I think...after I give birth. I’m handing her off to you. Completely,_ ” Målingen continued. “ _She’s yours and Daniel’s. Always will be. I’m sorry I couldn’t keep my promise. I’m sorry I’m so…useless,_ ” her laugh was dry, empty. “ _At least..._ ”

Målingen cupped her face with her own hands. Lockne did the same with hers as she watched the rest of the message. 

“ _We’ll always be connected. We won’t drift apart._ ”

Målingen smiled widely then faded out.

Afterwards, Lockne felt the loneliness return. Her constant companion, filling-in the void her sister had left behind. She felt her absence everywhere: in every empty seat across from her, every empty room. In every woman that had black hair in a ponytail; in every slightest pang in her belly. She felt her every time she heard a baby cry, every mother’s lullaby in Målingen’s calm, soothing voice. 

Målingen wasn’t useless. No matter how often she called herself that. 

“We were going to raise her together,” Lockne finally said. Aaron stood so close to her that she smelled the musk from his aftershave. 

“I used to feel her sadness, joy, fear, anxiety. Everything. I thought...when she sent this message, it might’ve been another mood swing. But it was different. She meant it. All along I thought...she _wanted_ to raise her with me.” 

All the times she dismissed Målingen’s sadness plagued her mind. They were whole once. Twins. Connected since the womb. How couldn’t she have known?

“I think,“ Lockne pursed her lips, biting back the truth. “I think she’s angry with me. For guilting her.”

Aaron stared at the space where Målingen had stood, as if she hadn’t left. He took off his cap and ran a hand through his hair. “Guilting her? What do you mean?”

Lockne looked to the door. If she left now, Aaron wouldn’t follow. But she decided to stay, to face the question like she would Målingen one day.

“When Daniel died, I didn’t know what to do with myself,” she began, haltingly. “I felt so lost and alone. I was so in love with him—he was my whole world. My reason for living. I wanted to join him...and I tried to,” she rubbed the back of her neck. “Once.” 

Lockne pulled up her sister’s message again but didn’t play it. Målingen stood frozen in time, her lips curled into a slight smile. “I wanted her to feel my pain. _All_ of it,” she begged. “I wanted her to take it away. For her to do something about it. And she did, by having Elorza.

She walked up to Målingen’s hologram and asked, “am I a bad person?” 

“No. You’re not,” Aaron breathed, closing the space between them. He placed a tender hand on her shoulder. “Has she tried reaching out to you? Maybe she’s not angry, maybe it’s all just a misunderstanding?”

“She wouldn’t have severed our connection,” Lockne’s hand went to her belly. “Our DOOMS let us feel each other’s emotions. I used to be able to communicate with her from anywhere. Without a cuff link. The only way to sever our connection—and to fix it—is to do it willingly.

“She doesn’t want to see me,” Lockne flicked her wrist and turned the holo off. She looked to Aaron, spent, and sat down at his desk. He gestured to himself then to the door, silently asking if she wanted him to leave. She shook her head. 

Moments passed. Afternoon timefall tapped against their window, soft but persistent. Aaron looked through the rain-slicked glass. She watched him and knew he was still waiting for Sam to fix everything.

“How did you manage to get all this, anyway?” Lockne asked, at length. Not wanting to sound ungrateful, she added, “just curious, that’s all.”

“The fellas over at the recycling center give me stuff that’s too valuable to turn into scrap metal,” Aaron explained. “They didn’t tell me who was bringing all these boxes in...but I looked at one of the tapes. I didn’t watch the whole thing. I paused it when I saw you. Or your twin, I think,” he didn’t stare at her as he spoke, favoring the window. 

“I knew what you were trying to do. You were trying to forget. Make the pain go away.”

Aaron faced her eventually. He kept his Bridges hat off, brushing his fingers across its embroidered letters. “I lost my family in South Knot. You and Bridges are all I have now,” he admitted. “I know how much it hurts to remember. I wanted to do the same thing: toss out all my old photos, holos, letters. I wanted to forget. But I feel like...I owe it to my sister and my dad to remember. Even if it hurts.”

Lockne gave him a sympathetic stare. Between the two of them, he had always been the more cheerful one. It hurt to know that behind his ever-present smile was someone who ached and grieved as she did. He just knew how to hide it better.

“I came to this city to forget,” she confided. “But everything reminds me of him. Of my sister, my baby.”

Lockne rubbed at her cuff link. Its blue glow illuminated the gauntness of her face, making her look older than she really was. “We built the chiral network to reconnect people. So that no one has to feel alone in their shelters anymore. Once we join…” she trailed off. “I can’t face her. I’m not ready.”

Aaron put his cap back on. “I didn’t show you all this to try to change your mind,” he said, his gaze fixed on the holoplaque that had his name. “But I’m still Head of Distro. I can’t let my family down. I can’t let Bridges down.” 

He smiled tightly, then walked backwards to the door. “Sam will be here in a few days. I have to try.”

Lockne didn’t watch him leave. The door shut behind him, and she was left alone at his desk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Playlist for all of the end of chapter songs for part one: [[Spotify]](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6GOittahPGAZ9wMRZRdz89?si=CGrBtU_0RzeC92uOBLo9dw)


End file.
